A Fulminant Reversible Cerebrovascular Disorder in Fatal Breakthrough COVID-19 Infection

A 64-year-old lady with long standing history of migraine and recently diagnosed hypertension on amlodipine, presented with history of continuous excruciating headache and vomiting of 10 days duration. Five days after onset of headache, she developed drowsiness and difficulty in walking. She had received two doses of COVISHIELD (AstraZeneca, ChAdOx1) vaccine, 2 months back. On examination, patient had significant vision impairment in both eyes with normal pupillary reflexes, quadriplegia and recurring focal seizures involving right upper limb. She tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Repeat MR angiogram showed widespread vasoconstriction of intracranial blood vessels suggestive of Reversible Cerebral Vasoconstriction Syndrome (RCVS). 

CSF analysis was normal. Although patient was diagnosed with COVID 19, patient did not complain of cough, breathlessness or fever. Oxygen saturation in room air was 92% and CT chest showed mild basal ground glass opacities. Hence, no steroids were administered, and patient was started on low molecular weight heparin in view of high D dimer levels and given oxygen supplementation as treatment for COVID infection.

She went on to develop status epilepticus, hemorrhagic transformation and significant brain edema. Patient succumbed to aspiration pneumonia and sepsis ten days after admission.


READ MORE


REFERENCE

Ray S, Kamath VV, Raju A, Rajesh KN, Shalini N. Fulminant Reversible Cerebral Vasoconstriction Syndrome in Breakthrough COVID 19 Infection. Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases. 2022 Feb 1;31(2):106238.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A New Onset of Ulcerative Colitis post-2nd-breakthrough-COVID-19

Image
A 21-year-old non-smoking Caucasian male with a history of acute pancreatitis but no other medical issues or family history had two doses of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.  Four months after the second dose he had his first episode of COVID-19. Although not hypoxic, he felt pretty unwell for a week, with a severe cough, fever, generalized body ache, headache, and loss of taste. He received the third dose of the vaccine two months after recovering from COVID. Nine months after the third dose, he had the second episode of COVID-19, during which he was mildly unwell for three days, recovered, and did not require any anti-viral medication or antibiotics. One week post the second episode of COVID-19, he developed diarrhea and abdominal pain. It then progressed to bloody diarrhea. Ulcerative colitis was diagnosed based on his clinical symptoms, biopsy changes, and the exclusion of other causes.  There are ten published case reports about the newly diagnosed ulcerative colitis ...
Read more

COVID in May

Image
Concerns about a potential resurgence of COVID-19 are mounting as summer 2024 approaches.  This is driven by several indicators, including social media posts, healthcare data, and wastewater surveillance across different regions. Our study findings corroborate this trend.  While many forecasters anticipate a surge, others expect a gradual increase through the end of May, and then a decline again around early June. Reports from social media suggest emerging clusters of COVID-19 in Texas, several Canadian provinces, the UK, and on cruises in northern regions such as a Norwegian cruise to Alaska.  Data from Alberta's Respiratory virus dashboard   (total weekly laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases) and wastewater surveillance in Calgary indicate an uptick in COVID-19 cases starting April 2024. The most recent statistics from Alberta Health reveal a significant increase in hospitalizations due to COVID-19, with 114 individuals currently hospitalized—an incr...
Read more

Chronic SARS-CoV-2 Shedding

Image
Chronic viral shedding, a condition where the virus continues to be released from an individual's body long after the initial infection, has been observed in many infectious diseases, including COVID-19.  In such cases, individuals may remain asymptomatic or experience only mild symptoms while the virus persists. It remains detectable in repeated tests over an extended period and can still infect others even in nasal swab is negative (which happens quite often ). This was evident in our study.    Recent research by Conway et al. (2024) highlights the possibility of chronic SARS-CoV-2 infection, extending over several months and potentially years. Other studies have documented prolonged asymptomatic infections and extended viral shedding in moderate to severe beyond hospital discharge. Analysis of sequencing data on UK samples taken between 2 November 2020 and 15 August 2022 lead to estimates that 0.1–0.5% of infections may become persistent with typically rebounding high ...
Read more