Acute macular neuroretinopathy and COVID-19 vaccination: Case report and literature review

OBJECTIVE: To review cases of acute macular neuroretinopathy (AMN) after COVID-19 vaccination and add a similar case to the literature. METHODS: A thorough PubMed search was conducted, and data from studies describing AMN after COVID-19 vaccination were extracted, tabulated, pooled, and reviewed. RESULTS: We present a case of AMN in a young woman 5 days after immunization with the BBIBP-CorV (Sinopharm) COVID-19 vaccine. Data from 21 cases were pooled and reviewed. The most frequent vaccines among the cases were recombinant ones (13/21), followed by mRNA-based (6/21) and inactivated vaccines (2/21). Only one patient (5%) was male. Seventeen over twenty-one (81%) were young women, ages 18–33. Most cases (14/21; 67%) reported recent/concurrent use of contraceptive medication. In 90% of cases (19/21), symptoms appeared within 8 days of vaccination. A confined wedge-/oval-shaped lesion morphology was more frequent than a diffuse, semilunar one. Resolution of symptoms took 4 to over 15 weeks. CONCLUSION: Attention should be paid to the history of vaccination and contraceptive use in patients with sudden-onset visual symptoms. Optical coherence tomography is integral to the detection of AMN-related abnormalities.