Decreased renal apparent diffusion coefficient after COVID-19 associated acute kidney injury
Authors: Eckerbom Per , Luther Tomas , Cox Eleanor , Weis Jan , Hultström Michael , Lipcsey Miklos , Palm Fredrik , Francis Susan , Liss Per , Frithiof Robert 
Published: May 2023

Study objective: To investigate if there are any differences in total renal blood flow, regional renal perfusion, renal oxygenation or renal tissue properties, studied by non-invasive MRI, in patients having recovered from severe COVID-19 with different grades of acute kidney injury (AKI). Hypothesis: We hypothesize that the decrease in renal blood flow and perfusion that our research group have previously found in severe COVID-19 patients with AKI1 may persist together with possible renal edema and development of fibrosis. Material and methods: We identified patients with AKI grade 3 from a cohort of patients previously treated in the intensive care unit for severe COVID-19 with respiratory failure. These patients were matched to possible extent regarding age, sex, height, weight, body mass index (BMI) and body surface area (BSA) with patients from the same cohort that had AKI grade 1 and patients that did not have AKI. A total of 22 patients were included. Because of common occurrence of oliguria without a reduction of glomerular filtration, AKI grade was determined using the Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcome (KDIGO) creatinine criteria only. All patients had a record of a plasma creatinine inside normal range within two years prior to ICU care, and had no history of renal disease. Comorbidities were common in the study population. Follow up examination was performed approximately five months after the patients were admitted the ICU. Results: Significant differences in cortical and medullary ADC were demonstrated between the study groups. Both cortical and medullary ADC was significantly reduced in the ‘AKI grade 3’ group compared to the ‘no AKI’ group and the ‘AKI grade 1’ group. Total renal blood flow was significantly lower in the ‘AKI grade 3’ group compared to the ‘no AKI’ group and global renal perfusion was significantly lower in the ‘AKI grade 3’ group compared to the ‘no AKI’ and ‘AKI grade 1’ groups. No significant differences in either cortical or medullary perfusion were seen between the groups. Cortical and medullary oxygenation and renal vein oxygen saturation did not differ significantly between the groups. Conclusion: In this study we demonstrates that, approximately five months after intensive care for severe COVID-19, patients that had high grades of AKI during hospitalization have reduced cortical and medullary ADC together with reduced total renal blood flow and global renal perfusion compared to similar patients that did not have AKI. These findings might indicate development of renal fibrosis. No differences regarding renal oxygenation were observed between the studied groups. 1. Luther T, Eckerbom P, Cox E, Lipcsey M, Bulow S, Hultstrom M, et al. Decreased renal perfusion during acute kidney injury in critical COVID-19 assessed by magnetic resonance imaging: a prospective case control study. Crit Care. 2022;26(1):262. Public and private funding sources. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.