Abstract
Background: This study aimed to explore the time-varying impact of COVID-19 on acute kidney disorders, including acute kidney injury and other acute kidney diseases. Methods: From the UK Biobank, 10,121 participants with COVID-19 were matched with up to 3 historically unexposed controls by age, sex, Townsend deprivation index, and the status of hospitalization or receiving critical care. We investigated the association between COVID-19 and incidence of acute kidney disorders, within the first 4 weeks after infection, using conditional and time-varying Cox proportional hazard regression. In addition, one-sample Mendelian randomization, utilizing the polygenic risk score for COVID-19 as an instrumental variable, was conducted to explore the potential causality of the association. Results: In the matched cohort study, we observed a significant association between COVID-19 and acute kidney disorders predominantly within the first 3 weeks. The impact of COVID-19 was time dependent, peaking in the second week (hazard ratio, 12.77; 95% confidence interval, 5.93 to 27.70) and decreasing by the fourth week (hazard ratio, 2.28; 95% confidence interval, 0.75 to 6.93). In subgroup analyses, only moderate to severe COVID-19 cases were associated with acute worsening of renal function in a time-dependent pattern. One-sample Mendelian randomization analyses further showed that COVID-19 might exert a "short-term" causal effect on the risk of acute kidney disorders, primarily confined to the first week after infection. Conclusions: The risk of acute kidney disorders following COVID-19 demonstrates a time-varying pattern. Hazard effects were observed only in patients with moderate or severe but not mild COVID-19.