First Report of the Durability of the Antibody Response in Maintenance Hemodialysis Patients and Kidney Transplant Recipients Vaccinated with Two Doses of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 Vaccine: A Prospective, Comparative, Multicenter, Observational Study.

Abstract

The immunogenicity of COVID-19 vaccines in maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) and kidney transplant recipients (KTR) are suboptimal. However, there are no data on the durability of the humoral response with the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine in these groups. This was a multicenter, prospective cohort study of MHD patients (n = 73), KTR (n = 62), and controls (n = 22) who received the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine between February 2021 and April 2022. The vaccine response was measured at 1 and 6 months after the second dose. The antibody response in the MHD group compared with the controls was statistically lower at both 1 and 6 months. However, only six (8.2%) cases showed negative seroresponses at 1 month, and five (6.84%) had negative responses at 6 months. For the KTR group, overall, 26 (35.61%) cases had no seroresponse, and 36 (64.39%) seroconverted at6 months. In this group, antibody levels were lower at 6 months; however, there was no significant difference compared with 1 month. In a comparison of the MHD group and KTR, the antibody levels were significantly lower in the KTR group. The risk factors for no response at 6 months in the KTR group were a greater age, a recent history of antirejection, and being in the early transplant period, whereas only age was linked with a low response in the MHD group. Our report highlights the consistent and durable response of the COVID-19 vaccine in both groups of patients, despite them having an attenuated response compared with the controls.