Severe kidney problems seen with COVID-19; Second vaccine dose should not be delayed for cancer patients

The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Kidney problems from COVID-19 are particularly severe

Sudden kidney problems from severe COVID-19 appear to be worse, and longer-lasting, than kidney problems that develop in other seriously ill patients, a new study found.

Doctors at five hospitals in Connecticut and Rhode Island studied 182 patients with COVID-19-associated acute kidney injury (AKI) and 1,430 patients with AKI not associated with the coronavirus.

The COVID-19 patients had steeper declines in their kidneys' ability to filter waste from the blood while hospitalized, the researchers reported.

In addition, among patients whose kidneys were still impaired at hospital discharge, those with COVID-19 were significantly less likely to have recovered to their pre-illness kidney status six months later, and their kidney function was predicted to decline over time at a faster rate than in the other patients.

The data, published on Wednesday in JAMA Network Open, show that "acute kidney injury associated with COVID-19 has a worse prognosis than traditional acute kidney injury," said coauthor Dr. Francis Perry Wilson of the Yale University School of Medicine.

"Those with COVID-19 associated acute kidney injuries should probably be monitored more closely than others once they are out of the hospital."

Second shot should not be delayed for cancer patients

Delayed administration of the second dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine leaves most cancer patients unprotected, a new report warns.

In clinical trials last year, the messenger RNA vaccines were tested with second doses given either three or four weeks after the first depending on the vaccine.

In January, the UK decided to delay second doses until 12 weeks. At Kings College London, doctors studied 205 adults who received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, including 151 cancer patients.

After the first dose, almost all the healthy individuals had strong immune responses, but that was true for fewer than half of patients with solid tumors and fewer than one-in-seven patients with blood cancers, said Dr. Adrian Hayday.

When solid-cancer patients got the second dose at the recommended three weeks, 95% developed robust antibody responses.

Among those who did not get the booster dose on time because of the UK's new policy, only 43% of solid cancer patients and 8% of blood cancer patients had antibodies at five weeks.

"A single dose of the vaccine left most cancer patients largely or completely unprotected," Hayday said. The

study report has been submitted ahead of peer review to medRxiv but is not yet online. The data are available on the COVID-Immuno-Phenotype website. -- Reuters