Oxidative stress in patients with coronavirus disease and end-stage renal disease: a pilot study

Background Oxidative stress, an imbalance between reactive oxygen species production and antioxidant capacity, increases in patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) or renal impairment.

We investigated whether combined COVID-19 and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) would increase oxidative stress levels compared to each disease alone.

Methods Oxidative stress was compared among three groups.

Two groups comprised patients with COVID-19 referred to the hospital with or without renal impairment (COVID-ESRD group [ n  = 18]; COVID group [ n  = 17]).

The third group (ESRD group [ n  = 18]) comprised patients without COVID-19 on maintenance hemodialysis at a hospital.

Results The total oxidative stress in the COVID-ESRD group was lower than in the COVID group ( p  = 0.047).

The total antioxidant status was higher in the COVID-ESRD group than in the ESRD ( p  < 0.001) and COVID ( p  < 0.001) groups after controlling for covariates.

The oxidative stress index was lower in the COVID-ESRD group than in the ESRD ( p  = 0.001) and COVID ( p  < 0.001) groups.

However, the three oxidative parameters did not differ significantly between the COVID and COVID-ESRD groups.

Conclusions The role of reactive oxygen species in the pathophysiology of COVID-19 among patients withESRD appears to be non-critical.

Therefore, the provision of supplemental antioxidants may not confer a therapeutic advantage, particularly in cases of mild COVID-19 in ESRD patients receiving hemodialysis.

Nonetheless, this area merits further research.