Retinal artery vasculitis secondary to administration of influenza vaccine. (27th August 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Williams, Gwyn Samuel; Evans, Sam; Yeo, Damien; Al-bermani, Ayad
• Is Part Of: BMJ case reports. Volume 2015
• Publication Date: 2015-08-27
• Subjects: Medicine -- Case studies -- Periodicals; 610.5
• DOI: 10.1136/bcr-2015-211971
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1757-790X

Abstract

Abstract : There are many differential diagnoses in investigating patients who present with retinal vasculitis, and the laboratory investigations used to investigate this have low-to-moderate sensitivity and/or specificity. Diagnoses include conditions such as tuberculosis or sarcoidosis, which may require long courses of antibiotics or immunosuppression. Influenza vaccination has been recognised as a cause of vasculitis for decades, although a purely ocular presentation is rare. We present a case of a 78-year-old Caucasian woman presenting with a single vessel arterial vasculitis of the right eye 8 weeks following influenza vaccination at her local general practitioner practice. We encourage ophthalmologists, rheumatologists and uveitis specialists to consider influenza vaccine as a cause of ocular vasculitis if the vaccine has been recently administered.