Purpose: To determine the presence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA in postmortem ocular specimens of patients with severe COVID-19 disease.
Patients and methods: Postmortem conjunctival (28 samples), aqueous humor (30 samples) and vitreous humor (30 samples) specimens were obtained bilaterally from the eyes of 15 deceased COVID-19 patients within one hour of death. The presence of viral RNA was evaluated in samples using Real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).
Results: Positive RT-PCR SARS-COV-2 results were found in one conjunctival and 2 vitreous humor samples. All aqueous humor samples tested negative for the presence of SARS-COV-2 RNA. Of note, three positive samples were obtained from three different patients. The overall prevalence of positive RT-PCR ocular samples was 3.4% among all samples and 20% at the patient level.
Conclusion: SARS-CoV-2 RNA is detectable in postmortem conjunctival and vitreous humor samples of patients with severe COVID-19.
Keywords: COVID-19; RT-PCR; SARS-CoV-2; aqueous humor; autopsy; conjunctiva; vitreous humor.