Antibody responses to inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in peritoneal dialysis patients.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: As end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients generally have reduced responses to the vaccines, effectiveness of newly developed SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in ESRD are also matters of curiosity. We aimed to investigate the humoral responses of our peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients to the inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. METHODS: Humoral immune responses of 23 PD patients who received two doses of the inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine were investigated with a commercial test that measures IgG antibodies towards receptor binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Seropositivity rates, antibody titers, and ESRD related clinical data were compared with 51 hemodialysis (HD) patients and 29 healthy volunteers. RESULTS: Seropositivity of PD patients with the inactivated vaccine was 95.6%. Both the rate of seropositivity and SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody levels in PD patients were not different from the healthy controls (p = 0.85 and 0.19, respectively). While seropositivity rates were not different for PD or HD patients (p = 0.09), the magnitude of humoral responses was significantly higher in PD patients (p = 0.0001). There were no vaccine-related serious adverse events. In the 3-months clinical follow-up, none of the patients experienced SARS-CoV-2 infection. CONCLUSION: Two doses of the inactivated vaccine generate adequate humoral immune response in PD patients without any serious adverse events.