Kidney Complications of COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: some patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) have been reported tohave developed mild to severe kidney injuries. the current systematic review and meta-analysiswas carried out to estimate the prevalence and incidence of acute kidney injury (aki) amongcovid-19 patients.study design: a systematic review and meta-analysismethods: pubmed, embase, scopus, web of science, and medrxiv databases were searchedfrom december 1, 2019, up to july 27, 2020. two independent co-authors completed the screeningprocess, data extraction, and quality assessment of the retrieved records. random-effects metaanalyses were used to determine the pooled prevalence and 95% confidence interval (ci) of aki among covid-19 patients.results: out of 2,332 unique identified records, 51 studies were included in the review. overall,the studies were carried out on 25,600 patients. a total of 6,505 patients (in 18 cross-sectionalstudies) were included to estimate the pooled prevalence of aki, and 18,934 patients (in 27 cohortstudies) were included to determine the pooled incidence of aki. the pooled prevalence of akiwas estimated as 10.08% (95% ci: 4.59, 17.32; i2=98.56%; p<0.001). furthermore, the pooledincidence of aki was 12.78% (95% ci: 7.38, 19.36; i2=99.27%; p<0.001). the mean (95% ci)values of serum creatinine (scr), blood urea nitrogen (bun), potassium, and sodium were 76.10(69.36, 82.84), 4.60 (4.04, 5.30), 3.94 (3.78, 4.11), and 139.30 (138.26, 140.36) mmol/l,respectively.conclusions: the aki is a considerable complication among covid-19 patients and should bescreened for on clinical examinations. the bun, scr, potassium, and sodium levels were withinthe normal ranges.