Kidney Transplant Recipients and Omicron: Outcomes, effect of vaccines and the efficacy and safety of novel treatments

  1. Sarah Gleeson
  2. Paul Martin
  3. Tina Thomson
  4. Amarpreet Thind
  5. Maria Prendecki
  6. Katrina J. Spensley
  7. Candice L. Clarke
  8. Candice Roufosse
  9. Graham Pickard
  10. David Thomas
  11. Stephen P. McAdoo
  12. Liz Lightstone
  13. Peter Kelleher
  14. Michelle Willicombe

Reviewed by

Read the full article See related articles

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

We aimed to describe the outcomes of Omicron infection in kidney transplant recipients (KTR), compare the efficacy of the community therapeutic interventions and report the safety profile of molnupiravir.

From 142 KTRs diagnosed with COVID-19 infection after Omicron had become the dominant variant in the UK, 116 (78.9%) cases were diagnosed in the community; 47 receiving sotrovimab, 21 molnupiravir and 48 no treatment. 10 (20.8%) non-treated patients were hospitalised following infection, which was significantly higher than the sotrovimab group (2.1%), p=0.0048, but not the molnupiravir treated group (14.3%), p=0.47. The only admission following sotrovimab occurred in a patient infected with BA.2. One patient from the molnupiravir and no-treatment groups required ICU support, and both subsequently died, with one other death in the no-treatment group. No patient receiving sotrovimab died. 6/116 (5.2%) patients required dialysis following their diagnosis; 2 (9.5%) patients receiving molnupiravir and 4 (8.3%) no-treatment. This requirement was significantly higher in the molnupiravir group compared with the sotrovimab treated patients, in whom no patient required dialysis, p=0.035. Both molnupiravir treated patients requiring dialysis had features of systemic thrombotic microangiopathy.

Post-vaccination serostatus was available in 110 patients. Seropositive patients were less likely to require hospital admission compared with seronegative patients, 6 (7.0%) and 6 (25.0%) respectively, p=0.023. Seropositive patients were also less likely to require dialysis therapy, p=0.016.

In conclusion, sotrovimab treatment in the community was associated with superior patient and transplant outcomes; it’s clinical efficacy against the BA.2 variant requires a rapid review. The treatment benefit of molnupiravir was not evident, and wider safety reporting in transplant patients is needed.

Article activity feed

  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.05.03.22274524: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2022.05.03.22274524v1 on medRxiv