Abstract
Objective: This study aimed to investigate the association between serum potassium variability and 60-day mortality and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients following the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study on MHD patients treated at the affiliated hospital of Qingdao University hemodialysis center who were infected with the novel coronavirus between December 1, 2022, and January 31, 2023. Baseline characteristics of patients were collected from electronic medical records. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was used to obtain patient survival probabilities, and multivariate Cox hazard regression models and binary Logistic regression models were used to obtain hazard ratios (HR), odds ratios (OR), and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) between exposure and outcomes. Results: A total of 296 patients were included in this study, with a mean age of 57.2±16.3 years, and 59.8% were male. The 60-day mortality rate was 10.8%, and the incidence of CVD was 32.8%. Kaplan-Meier curves showed that a higher potassium variability coefficient was associated with higher all-cause mortality (P = 0.024). After adjusting for potential confounders, multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that the HR for 60-day mortality in the Q4 group compared to the Q1 group was 2.06 (95% CI = 1.03-4.09, P = 0.040), and binary Logistic regression analysis showed that the OR for 60-day CVD in the Q4 group compared to the Q1 group was 4.09 (95% CI = 1.52-10.97, P = 0.005). Conclusion: Increased serum potassium variability in MHD patients after COVID-19 infection significantly increased the likelihood of 60-day mortality and CVD.