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Updated: Jun 13, 2025

A Large Animal Model for Acute Kidney Injury by Temporary Bilateral Renal Artery Occlusion
Published on: February 2, 2021
Acute kidney injury: a post-COVID-19 complication in children and adolescents
Maria Clara Mendes Maranhão1, Marina do Nascimento Mateus1, Giovanna Sturzenegger Tosatto1
1Universidade Positivo, Curitiba, PA, Brazil.
Objective:
To describe cases of acute kidney injury (AKI) in children diagnosed with COVID-19, associated risk factors, clinical aspects and outcome of cases.
Methods:
Retrospective study, carried out in a pediatric hospital between March 2020 and September 2021, with patients with COVID-19 who were diagnosed with AKI, studying information present in medical records such as comorbidities, age, gender and use of nephrotoxic medications.
Results:
We studied 40 cases, and male individuals were significantly more affected (62.5%; p=0.025). AKI was a severe complication of COVID-19 infection, with 100% of the sample requiring admission to the Intensive Care Unit and 22.5% dying. The most prevalent comorbidities analyzed in this study were epilepsy, cerebral palsy and heart disease. Most patients were classified according to Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) criteria as KDIGO 1 (42.5%), and required orotracheal intubation (67.5%). The frequency of use of nephrotoxic medications and need for dialysis was low, with percentages of 35 and 17.5%, respectively. Among the children who died, 70.4% had some comorbidity and 88.8% received invasive ventilation.
Conclusions:
AKI in children with COVID-19 infection is associated with severe conditions. Despite the severity, most patients were discharged alive from the hospital.
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