Minimal change disease (MCD) after Moderna COVID-19 vaccination

ABSTRACT

Background: Post vaccination minimal change disease with nephrotic syndrome and acute kidney injury has been reported after influenza and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Further research is needed to prove a correlation. Methods: Clinical case, renal biopsy, dialysis Results: We present a case of a 65 years old patient, who developed minimal change disease 8 days following first injection with Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. In his medical history the patient has collagenous colitis and was on treatment with budenofalk. He presented with full blown nephrotic syndrome and developed dialysis dependent acute kidney injury for two weeks. Renal biopsy showed minimal change disease with 90% loss of podocyte processes in electron microscopy. Two weeks of dialysis and immunosupressive therapy over three months after the event lead to recovery of renal function to baseline. The patient received the second COVID-19 vaccination without developing complications or relapse. Conclusions: We present one of the first patients with minimal change disease after Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. There was an association between the timing of the vaccination and clinical manifestation of ne-phrotic syndrome. A definite causal relation still needs to be elucidated. A possible pathomechanism would be, that mRNA vaccines initiate T-cell mediated injury. However further studies are needed to find the im-munological mechanism of action after COVID-19 vaccination. Out of many millions of mRNA vaccines administered so far, to our knowledge, 7 cases of de novo minimal change disease have been described as well as up to 17 other glomerular diseases de novo and relapsing after COVID-19 vaccination.