COVID-19-positivity in a heart transplant recipient-antibody-mediated rejection or SARS-CoV-2-associated cardiac injury?

Paul J Hanson; Felicia Liu-Fei; Chi Lai; Mustafa Toma; Bruce M McManus

doi:10.1093/omcr/omab143

COVID-19-positivity in a heart transplant recipient-antibody-mediated rejection or SARS-CoV-2-associated cardiac injury?

Oxf Med Case Reports. 2022 Jan 24;2022(1):omab143. doi: 10.1093/omcr/omab143. eCollection 2022 Jan.

Authors

Paul J Hanson¹, Felicia Liu-Fei¹, Chi Lai², Mustafa Toma³, Bruce M McManus⁴

Affiliations

¹ UBC Centre for Heart Lung Innovation, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
² UBC Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
³ St. Paul's Hospital, Division of Cardiology, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
⁴ PROOF Centre of Excellence, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Abstract

Through the ongoing and heightening coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the heart has been implicated as a central target of injury associated with significantly increased morbidity and mortality. Correspondingly, heart transplant recipients are a vulnerable population for which insufficient research has been conducted. Pathologic antibody-mediated rejection (pAMR) of cardiac allografts shares many characteristics with COVID-19-associated cardiac injury. In this case study, we investigate a 57-year-old female who contracted COVID-19 11 days postheart transplant and was observed to have pAMR while positive for laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, resulting in a diagnostic conundrum.

Publication types

Case Reports