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Vascular retinal findings after COVID-19 vaccination in 11 cases: a coincidence or consequence?

2022; Conselho Brasileiro de Oftalmologia; Volume: 85; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5935/0004-2749.20220071

1678-2925

Letícia S. C. da Silva, Luciana Peixoto Finamor, Gabriel Costa de Andrade, Luiz H. Lima, Cláudio Zett, Cristina Muccioli, Eduardo P. Sarraff, Paula M. Marinho, Julia Peruchi, Raiza D. de L. Oliveira, Lena Giralt, Ivonne Charcan, Alex Fonollosa, J. Daniel Diaz, Janet L. Davis, Heloísa Nascimento, Rubens Belfort,

Ocular Diseases and Behçet’s Syndrome

The primary purpose of this study was to assess vascular retinal findings temporally related to COVID-19 vaccination. With greater information regarding all possible future adverse events, we hope to understand the real dimension and relevance of what was presented.Eleven patients with visual complaints after COVID-19 vaccination were enrolled. Data on the following were included: age, sex, vaccine, time of symptom onset, systemic findings, medical history, best-corrected visual acuity, and ocular findings by slit-lamp biomicroscopy as well as multimodal retinal imaging (color fundus, red-free photography, spectral-domain optical coherence tomography, optical coherence tomography angiography, and fluorescein-angiography). Inclusion criteria were the presence of ophthalmologic signs within 30 days after the first or second dose of any COVID-19 vaccine.Of 11 patients, five had arterial occlusion (45.4%), four had venous occlusion (36.4%), and two (18.2%) had nonspecific vascular alterations suggestive of retinal ischemia such as cotton-wool spots. The mean age was 57 (SD = 16; range: 27-84) years. The mean time of symptoms onset was 10 (SD = 5.4; range: 3-16) days. Nine patients were female (81.8%). Systemic risk factors were observed in 36.4% of patients. Two patients had both neurological and visual symptoms, with arterial occlusion. Overall, 36.4% patients had COVID-19 in the previous year. Seven patients (63.6%) received ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222) vaccine.Our data suggest that retinal events temporally related to COVID-19 vaccination are possible but are very rare. The relationship of these events with post-COVID-19 vaccination warrants further attention to derive a meaningful conclusion.