Dialysis Patients Maintain Humoral Response to SARS-CoV-2 Infection

WEDNESDAY, May 26, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Most severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) seropositive patients receiving dialysis maintain receptor-binding domain (RBD) immunoglobulin G (IgG) levels over a period of six months, according to a study published online May 18 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Shuchi Anand, M.D., from Stanford University in California, and colleagues examined the persistence of SARS-CoV-2 RBD IgG in seroprevalent patients receiving dialysis. Data were included for 2,215 patients receiving dialysis with evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection as of July 2020. The semiquantitative RBD IgG index value was measured over six months.

The researchers found that 93 percent of seroprevalent patients reached an assay-detectable response. Sixty percent had responses in July, with index values classified as high (IgG ≥10); 76 percent remained within this stratum. There was a slow but continuous decline in adjusted median index values (July versus December values: 21 versus 13). There was no variation noted in the trajectory of this response by age group, sex, race/ethnicity, or diabetes status. The 137 patients without an assay-detectable response were more likely to be White and in the younger or older age groups (18 to 44 and ≥80 years) and were less likely to have diabetes and hypoalbuminemia.

“We saw a slow and continual decline in median antibody levels over time but found no indication that subgroups with impaired immunity had a shorter-lived humoral response,” the authors write.

The study was partially funded by Ascend Clinical Laboratories.

Abstract/Full Text