Long-term kidney function recovery and mortality after COVID-19-associated acute kidney injury: An international multi-centre observational cohort study

Background: While acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication in COVID-19, data on post-AKI kidney function recovery and the clinical factors associated with poor kidney function recovery is lacking. Methods: A retrospective multi-centre observational cohort study comprising 12,891 hospitalized patients aged 18 years or older with a diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed by polymerase chain reaction from 1 January 2020 to 10 September 2020, and with at least one serum creatinine value 1–365 days prior to admission. Mortality and serum creatinine values were obtained up to 10 September 2021. Findings: Advanced age (HR 2.77, 95%CI 2.53–3.04, p < 0.0001), severe COVID-19 (HR 2.91, 95%CI 2.03–4.17, p < 0.0001), severe AKI (KDIGO stage 3: HR 4.22, 95%CI 3.55–5.00, p < 0.0001), and ischemic heart disease (HR 1.26, 95%CI 1.14–1.39, p < 0.0001) were associated with worse mortality outcomes. AKI severity (KDIGO stage 3: HR 0.41, 95%CI 0.37–0.46, p < 0.0001) was associated with worse kidney function recovery, whereas remdesivir use (HR 1.34, 95%CI 1.17–1.54, p < 0.0001) was associated with better kidney function recovery. In a subset of patients without chronic kidney disease, advanced age (HR 1.38, 95%CI 1.20–1.58, p < 0.0001), male sex (HR 1.67, 95%CI 1.45–1.93, p < 0.0001), severe AKI (KDIGO stage 3: HR 11.68, 95%CI 9.80–13.91, p < 0.0001), and hypertension (HR 1.22, 95%CI 1.10–1.36, p = 0.0002) were associated with post-AKI kidney function impairment. Furthermore, patients with COVID-19-associated AKI had significant and persistent elevations of baseline serum creatinine 125% or more at 180 days (RR 1.49, 95%CI 1.32–1.67) and 365 days (RR 1.54, 95%CI 1.21–1.96) compared to COVID-19 patients with no AKI. Interpretation: COVID-19-associated AKI was associated with higher mortality, and severe COVID-19-associated AKI was associated with worse long-term post-AKI kidney function recovery. Funding: Authors are supported by various funders, with full details stated in the acknowledgement section

The Strategic Cognition View of Issue Salience and the Evolution of a Political Issue : Landis & Gyr, the Hungarian Uprising and East-West Trade, 1953–1967

Why do firms facing similar stakeholder issues respond quite differently? The recently introduced strategic cognition view of issue salience and firm responsiveness (hereinafter: issue salience model) seeks to tackle this core question of stakeholder theory. I extend the nascent theorizing with a historical case study in order to rethink the model’s firm-centric perspective. The firm under examination in this historical case study is the Swiss multinational Landis & Gyr (LG) during the Cold War period. Like many other Swiss exportoriented companies in the 1950s and early 1960s, LG was challenged by Swiss pressure groups, which were highly effective at putting an issue on the public agenda: the call to break off trade relations with the communist East. The empirically grounded explanation of issue interpretation and response mechanisms derived from this case study offers two key theoretical implications: First, it shifts our focus outwards, toward the social and political context, in which issues evolve and play out over time. This elaboration seeks to understand the role of the social and political surroundings in constituting firm-specific issue interpretation processes and response outcomes. Second, the findings suggest that the issue salience model emphasizes an overly homogenizing conception of the firm. By pointing towards the tensions and ambiguities in a firm’s collective sensemaking efforts, I start a critique of the theory in order to push this important stream of research further.peerReviewe