Worsening of Graves' ophthalmopathy after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination

More reports are documenting how vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) could represent new external triggers for autoimmune endocrine diseases (AIED) in patients with individual predisposition. We report two cases of Graves' Ophthalmopathy (GO) recrudescence few days after the administration of BNT162B2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Even if causality relationship cannot be excluded, the development of these events could be explained through immune mediated mechanism such as the autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA). While further investigations are necessary to improve our knowledge of the underlying pathogenesis of these phenomena, caution may be warranted when vaccinating individuals with known autoimmune diseases.