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Case based discussion
COVID-19 vaccine-related interstitial lung disease: a case study
  1. Ji Young Park1,
  2. Joo-Hee Kim1,
  3. In Jae Lee2,
  4. Hwan Il Kim1,
  5. Sunghoon Park1,
  6. Yong Il Hwang1,
  7. Seung Hun Jang1,
  8. Ki-Suck Jung1
  1. 1 Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, Hallym University College of Medicine, Anyang, South Korea
  2. 2 Department of Radiology, Hallym University College of Medicine, Anyang, South Korea
  1. Correspondence to Dr Ji Young Park, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, Hallym University College of Medicine, Anyang 14068, South Korea; evan007{at}naver.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/thoraxjnl-2021-217609

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    Dr Ji Young Park

    Herd immunity through extensive and rapid vaccination rather than natural immunity acquired by infection is necessary to control a global pandemic like COVID-19. The development of COVID-19 vaccines has been accelerated through government funding and the collaborative efforts of the medical–scientific institutions and the pharmaceutical industry.1 2 In South Korea, the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (Oxford/AstraZeneca) and BNT162b2 (Pfizer/BioNTech) vaccines have received emergency approval and are being used. Although the safety and efficacy of these vaccines were established through interim analysis in global clinical trials, long-term data and reports of rare adverse reactions remain inadequate.1 2 We report a case of interstitial lung disease (ILD) after COVID-19 vaccination and review the literature on influenza vaccine-related ILDs. This review is favourable as influenza vaccines are widely administered annually among the elderly, and several vaccine-related ILDs have been reported.

    Dr Hwan Il Kim

    In early April 2021, an 86-year-old man presented to the emergency department with a 1-day history of weakness, dyspnoea and fever. He had no cough, expectoration, nasal discharge or sore throat. One day before symptom onset, he had received a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. He had hypertension, diabetes and chronic renal disease, which were well controlled with medications (atorvastatin, amlodipine, furosemide, linagliptin, metformin and clopidogrel). He was a non-smoker with no history of cardiovascular, pulmonary, allergic or connective tissue disease (CTD). He took an influenza vaccine annually with no adverse events and had no history of adverse events with other vaccines or drugs. He denied any recent changes in his living environment and exposure to chemicals or organic particles. On admission, his body temperature was 38.2°C, and peripheral oxygen saturation was 80% on room air. He had no rash, oedema or clubbing, but bilateral crackles were found on auscultation. The partial pressure of oxygen in arterial blood (PaO2)/fraction of inspired oxygen ratio (FiO …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors JYP, HIK and SP treated the patient and collected the data for the manuscript. IL reviewed the radiology of the case. J-HK, YIH and SHJ contributed to analysis and interpretation. JYP and KJ oversaw the conception, writing, formatting and editing. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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