The group most at risk of death due to COVID-19 are patients on maintenance hemodialysis (HD). The study aims to describe the clinical course of the early phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection and find predictors of the development of COVID-19 severe pneumonia in this population. This is a case series of HD nonvaccinated patients with COVID-19 stratified into mild pneumonia and severe pneumonia group according to the chest computed tomography (CT) pneumonia total severity score (TSS) on admission. Epidemiological, demographic, clinical, and laboratory data were obtained from hospital records. 85 HD patients with a mean age of 69.74 (13.19) years and dialysis vintage of 38 (14-84) months were included. On admission, 29.14% of patients had no symptoms, 70.59% reported fatigue followed by fever-44.71%, shortness of breath-40.0%, and cough-30.59%. 20% of the patients had finger oxygen saturation less than 90%. In 28.81% of patients, pulmonary parenchyma was involved in at least 25%. The factors associated with severe pneumonia include fever, low oxygen saturation and arterial partial pressure of oxygen, increased C-reactive protein and ferritin serum levels, low blood count of lymphocytes as well as chronic treatment with angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors; while the chronic active vitamin D treatment was associated with mild pneumonia. In conclusion, even though nearly one-third of the patients were completely asymptomatic, while the remaining usually reported only single symptoms, a large percentage of them had extensive inflammatory changes at diagnosis with SARS-CoV-2 infection. We identified potential predictors of severe pneumonia, which might help individualize pharmacological treatment and improve clinical outcomes.
Keywords: ACE inhibitors; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; chronic kidney disease; hemodialysis; pneumonia; vitamin D.