key: cord-0756702-tgk4fq5q
authors: Santeusanio, Andrew D.; Bhansali, Arjun; Rana, Meenakshi; Lerner, Susan; Shapiro, Ron
title: Kidney transplantation in patients with prior coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19)
date: 2021-03-23
journal: Clin Transplant
DOI: 10.1111/ctr.14288
sha: 14c14847e07c739dde3e9c6b001b51abb3718459
doc_id: 756702
cord_uid: tgk4fq5q

nan

To the editor,

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to a precipitous drop in the number of kidney transplants performed in 2020, due to the redistribution of healthcare resources to assist with managing the surge in critically ill patients, as well as concern for increased infection-related mortality with chronic immunosuppression. 1 infections, which will disproportionately impact already marginalized communities. 3 Decisions regarding the timing of transplantation as well as immunosuppressant selection will be critical to restoring access to transplant while ensuring optimal patient and allograft outcomes. 4 At our transplant center, which was part of the initial epicenter After a median follow-up of 3.6 months, patient and allograft survival were 92% in patients with prior COVID-19 and were not statistically different from COVID-19 negative patients (Table 1) Based on our preliminary experience, transplanting selected patients with previous COVID-19 utilizing standard immunosuppression appears to be associated with similar short-term outcomes to COVID-19 naïve patients. We did observe a potential signal for an increased risk of perioperative respiratory complications, which may warrant additional monitoring, particularly in patients who required prior supplemental oxygen for COVID-19. Future studies in larger patient cohorts will be vital to provide ongoing guidance for transplant centers attempting to develop institutional protocols for managing these vulnerable patients.

The authors of this manuscript have no conflicts of interest to disclose. The authors did not receive any funding to assist with the completion of this research. 

The data that support the findings of this study are available on 

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