Orbital Inflammatory Pseudotumor following mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination

ABSTRACT

The authors present a case of orbital pseudotumor after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination. A 40-year-old otherwise healthy woman was referred to our oculoplastics unit because of left blepharoptosis of 2 months duration starting 1 week after she received her first Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccination. On presentation, her best-corrected visual acuity was 20/20 in each eye. The external examination revealed left blepharoptosis and mild upper eyelid swelling. Orbital magnetic resonance imaging revealed left lacrimal gland enlargement with homogeneous contrast enhancement and diffuse mild enlargement of the left lateral and superior rectus muscles. The results of the extended workup for autoimmune and infectious etiologies and the systemic examination findings were normal. Systemic corticosteroids were started for the orbital pseudotumor. The presented case of orbital pseudotumor development after the mRNA vaccine may be considered to be an immunological process targeting the orbital tissue following immunization, although the cause–effect relationship remains uncertain.

KEYWORDS:

• Blepharoptosis
• COVID-19
• idiopathic orbital inflammation
• mRNA COVID-19 vaccination
• orbital pseudotumor
• SARS-CoV-2

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09273948.2022.2093757.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.