Table 2.

Key teaching points

1. Collapsing glomerulopathy can be a presentation of COVID-19 even in the absence of severe respiratory disease.

2. Collapsing glomerulopathy should be suspected as a cause of acute kidney injury associated with proteinuria.

3. A high-risk Apolipoprotein 1 genotype, most commonly seen in individuals of sub-Saharan African ancestry, increases the pretest probability of collapsing glomerulopathy.

4. We did not detect severe acute respiratory syndrome–novel Coronavirus 2 in the renal tissue by in situ hybridization, suggesting that the collapsing glomerulopathy is a consequence of the hyperinflammatory phenotype of COVID-19 rather than direct viral infection of renal cells.

5. Treatment is uncertain; extrapolating from other forms of virus-associated collapsing glomerulopathy, there may be utility in glucocorticoids and/or antiviral medication.

COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019.