Urinary SARS-CoV-2 RNA Is an Indicator for the Progression and Prognosis of COVID-19

Background: We aimed to analyze clinical characteristics and find potential factors to predict poor prognosis in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Methods: We analyzed the clinical characteristics and laboratory tests of COVID-19 patients and detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA in urine sedimen...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Lu Zhang, Maoqing Tian, Yuan Song, Wei Liang, Xiaogang Li, Yongqing Tong, Huiming Wang
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: MDPI AG 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/2b6712f718834667892be5af95f5bfb7
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:Background: We aimed to analyze clinical characteristics and find potential factors to predict poor prognosis in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Methods: We analyzed the clinical characteristics and laboratory tests of COVID-19 patients and detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA in urine sediments collected from 53 COVID-19 patients enrolled in Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University from 31 January 2020 to 18 February 2020 with qRT-PCR analysis. Then, we classified those patients based on clinical conditions (severe or non-severe syndrome) and urinary SARS-CoV-2 RNA (U<sub>RNA</sub><sup>−</sup> or U<sub>RNA</sub><sup>+</sup>). Results: We found that COVID-19 patients with severe syndrome (severe patients) showed significantly higher positive rate (11 of 23, 47.8%) of urinary SARS-CoV-2 RNA than non-severe patients (4 of 30, 13.3%, <i>p</i> = 0.006). U<sub>RNA</sub><sup>+</sup> patients or severe U<sub>RNA</sub><sup>+</sup> subgroup exhibited higher prevalence of inflammation and immune discord, cardiovascular diseases, liver damage and renal dysfunction, and higher risk of death than U<sub>RNA</sub><sup>−</sup> patients. To understand the potential mechanisms underlying the viral urine shedding, we performed renal histopathological analysis on postmortems of patients with COVID-19 and found severe renal vascular endothelium lesion characterized by an increase of the expression of thrombomodulin and von Willebrand factor, markers to assess the endothelium dysfunction. We proposed a theoretical and mathematic model to depict the potential factors that determine the urine shedding of SARS-CoV-2. Conclusions: This study indicated that urinary SARS-CoV-2 RNA detected in urine specimens can be used to predict the progression and prognosis of COVID-19 severity.