The Nephrology service of the Doctor José Molina Orosa Hospital, together with the Nuestra Señora de Candelaria University Hospitals, HUC and Gran Canaria Dr. Negrín, centers attached to the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands, join together with other national hospitals in a new study promoted by the Spanish Society of Nephrology (SEN) that will analyze the short and medium-term effect of the COVID-19 vaccine and the immunological response in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease on dialysis and kidney transplants.
The main objective of the study, called SENCOVAC, is to analyze the efficacy and safety of the vaccine in kidney patients and observe the immune response through the generation of antibodies and their duration after vaccination, as well as study possible adverse effects in a group that has been affected by the virus with a greater number of infections and high mortality.
The hypothesis of the study is that vaccination in this group of patients with chronic kidney disease is less effective than in the general population and that, therefore, it may be necessary to adapt the vaccination strategy to them.
The head of the Nephrology service of the Doctor José Molina Orosa Hospital, Adelaida Morales, emphasizes the importance of this type of study that helps to improve knowledge about vaccination in kidney patients, a group of patients usually excluded from clinical trials. In this sense, she points out that in patients with severe kidney disease, on dialysis or kidney transplants, vaccines against other diseases such as hepatitis B or Influenza have a considerably lower efficacy, so it is a matter of determining whether this group of patients requires a different vaccination strategy.
For this prospective and observational study, the Nephrology service of the Molina Orosa, in collaboration with the Clinical Analysis service of the center, collects blood samples from the 41 patients in the study for research, before the administration of the vaccine and after it for a period of two years to analyze the generation of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and measure the immunological response to the COVID-19 virus during that time.
The latest report from the COVID-19 Registry of the Spanish Society of Nephrology states that the overall mortality from the infection in this group is 20 percent, with the most affected being patients on hospital hemodialysis or in renal therapy centers, since they need to attend a minimum of three times a week for hemodialysis sessions, which prevents their isolation and the need to use sanitary transport.
