Coronavirus disease 2019 in solid organ transplant recipients in the setting of proactive screening and contact tracing of Qatar

Abstract EN

Background: Clinical data on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients are limited.

We herein report the initial clinical experience with COVID-19 in SOT recipients in Qatar.

Methods: All SOT recipients with laboratory-con- firmed COVID-19 up to May 23, 2020 were included.

Demographic and clinical data were extracted retro- spectively from the hospital's electronic health records.

Categorical data are presented as frequency and percentages, while continuous variables are summarized as medians and ranges.

Results: Twenty-four SOT recipients with COVID-19 were identified (kidney 16, liver 6, heart 1, and liver and kidney 1).

Organ transplantation preceded COVID-19 by a median of 60 months (range 1.7– 184).

The median age was 57 years (range 24–72), and 9 (37.5%) transplant recipients were females.

Five (21%) asymptomatic patients were diagnosed through proactive screening.

For the rest, fever (15/19) and cough (13/19) were the most frequent presenting symptoms.

Five (20.8%) patients required invasive mechanical ventilation in the intensive care unit (ICU).

Eleven (46%) patients developed acute kidney injury, including three in association with drug- drug interactions involving investigational COVID-19 therapies.

Maintenance immunosuppressive therapy was modified in 18 (75%) patients, but systemic corticosteroids were not discontinued in any.

After a median follow-up of 226 days (26–272), 20 (83.3%) patients had been discharged home, 2 (8.3%) were still hospitalized, 1 (4.2%) was still in the ICU, and 1 (4.2%) had died.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that asymptomatic COVID-19 is possible in SOT recipients and that overall outcomes are not uniformly worse than those in the general population.

The results require confirmation in large, international cohorts.