Case Report: Retinal Vasculitis in Two Adolescents After COVID-19 Vaccination

ABSTRACT

Purpose

To report two cases of bilateral retinal vasculitis in adolescents following COVID-19 vaccination.

Study Design

Case report.

Results

 We report the first two cases of retinal vasculitis in adolescents following COVID-19 vaccinations. Both patients received recent second-dose COVID-19 vaccinations (7 weeks and 4 weeks respectively), and presented with bilateral retinal vasculitis and vitritis. Investigations did not reveal other causes of retinal vasculitis. Both patients’ retinal vasculitis settled with a short course of oral prednisolone.

Conclusion

Although rare, the temporal association between vaccination, bilateral eye involvement, and the absence of alternative infective or inflammatory causes, makes this a plausible etiology. mRNA vaccinations may cause an autoimmune reaction via host antigenic mimicry, and systemic vasculitis has previously been described. We believe that a short interval between COVID-19 vaccination doses might be a risk factor for the development of retinal vasculitis in adolescents, and clinicians should be aware to elicit vaccination history.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescents
• case report
• COVID-19 mRNA vaccine
• COVID vaccination
• retinal vasculitis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval

The parents of the patients provided written consent for the publication of the cases.

Additional information

Funding

The authors reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.