Korean J Intern Med.  2022 Sep;37(5):989-1001. 10.3904/kjim.2022.072.

Clinical characteristics of patients with COVID-19 vaccine-related pneumonitis: a case series and literature review

• Park JY
• Kim JH
• Park S
• Hwang YI
• Kim HI
• Jang SH
• Jung KS
• Kim YK
• Kim HA
• Lee IJ

• KMID: 2533142
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3904/kjim.2022.072

Abstract

Background/Aims
Pulmonary toxicities of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination are exceedingly rare. However, there are a few reported cases after mRNA vaccination, especially from Asian countries. The purpose of this study was to report the clinical characteristics of patients with COVID-19 vaccine-related pneumonitis (CV-P) and to review cases reported in the literature.
Methods
We performed a prospective, observational case series analysis.
Results
Eleven patients with a median age of 80 years were enrolled. Ten patients developed CV-P after BNT162b2-mRNA vaccination and one after ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccination. We identified various patterns of CV-P, including transient infiltration, life-threatening acute respiratory distress syndrome, and aggravation of underlying interstitial lung disease. Most patients showed favorable outcomes with good responses to corticosteroid therapy.
Conclusions
Identifying the mechanism of CV-P requires further investigation; however, radiological and laboratory findings in our case series support inflammatory dysregulation in the lung parenchyma after vaccination. Clinicians should consider CV-P in patients with atypical lung infiltration, no specific etiologies, and recent COVID-19 vaccination

Keyword

COVID-19; Vaccines; Drug-related side effects and adverse reactions; Pneumonitis; Lung diseases; interstitial