You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 14, Issue 9
  • Acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction secondary to vaccine-induced immune thrombosis with thrombocytopaenia (VITT)

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Case report
Acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction secondary to vaccine-induced immune thrombosis with thrombocytopaenia (VITT)
  1. Luke Flower1,2,
  2. Zdenek Bares1,
  3. Georgina Santiapillai3 and
  4. Stephen Harris1
  1. 1Department of Critical Care, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
  2. 2William Harvey Research Institute, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, London, UK
  3. 3Haematology Department, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Luke Flower; luke.flower{at}doctors.org.uk

Abstract

A 40-year-old man with no cardiac history presented with central chest pain 8 days after receiving the ChAdOx1 nCov-19 vaccine against COVID-19. Initial blood tests demonstrated a thrombocytopaenia (24×109 μg/L) and a raised d-dimer (>110 000 μg/L), and he was urgently transferred to our tertiary referral central for suspected vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopaenia and thrombosis (VITT). He developed dynamic ischaemic electrocardiographic changes with ST elevation, a troponin of 3185 ng/L, and regional wall motion abnormalities. An occlusion of his left anterior descending coronary artery was seen on CT coronary angiography. His platelet factor-4 (PF-4) antibody returned strongly positive. He was urgently treated for presumed VITT with intravenous immunoglobulin, methylprednisolone and plasma exchange, but remained thrombocytopaenic and was initiated on rituximab. Argatroban was used for anticoagulation for his myocardial infarction while he remained thrombocytopaenic. After 6 days, his platelet count improved, and his PF-4 antibody level, troponin and d-dimer fell. He was successfully discharged after 14 days.

  • COVID-19
  • adult intensive care
  • haematology (including blood transfusion)
  • ischaemic heart disease

This article is made freely available for use in accordance with BMJ’s website terms and conditions for the duration of the covid-19 pandemic or until otherwise determined by BMJ. You may use, download and print the article for any lawful, non-commercial purpose (including text and data mining) provided that all copyright notices and trade marks are retained.

https://bmj.com/coronavirus/usage

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2021-245218

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Twitter @LukeFlower1

    • Contributors LF, ZB, GS and SH all contributed to the conception of the article. LF, ZB and GS drafted the manuscript, and SH critically revised the manuscript. All authors agree to be fully accountable for ensuring the integrity and accuracy of the work, and read 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.