Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 May 15;61(10):1581-1585.
doi: 10.2169/internalmedicine.9177-21. Epub 2022 Mar 19.

Severe Immune Thrombocytopenia after COVID-19 Vaccination: Two Case Reports and a Literature Review

Takuto Shonai  1   2 , Fumihiko Kimura  2 , Junichi Watanabe  1
Affiliations
Review

Severe Immune Thrombocytopenia after COVID-19 Vaccination: Two Case Reports and a Literature Review

Takuto Shonai et al. Intern Med. .

Abstract

We herein report two cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). A 69-year-old Japanese man developed severe thrombocytopenia after COVID-19 vaccination. He had oral bleeding and hemoptysis but no thrombotic symptoms. He improved rapidly with oral prednisolone therapy. A 34-year-old Japanese woman had generalized purpura after COVID-19 vaccination. Her platelet count improved rapidly after treatment with prednisolone and eltrombopag. The occurrence of two cases of ITP after COVID-19 vaccination at a single institution suggests that there could be more such undiagnosed cases, especially cases of mild secondary ITP.

Keywords: COVID-19; immune thrombocytopenia; vaccination.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors state that they have no Conflict of Interest (COI).

Figures

Figure.
Figure.
Clinical course of two patients with immune thrombocytopenia after COVID-19 vaccination. (a) Patient 1, (b) Patient 2. PSL (both patients) and EPAG (patient 2) were administered as treatment. The platelet count increased after PSL administration (black line). The time axis shows the number of days after first-dose vaccination. COVID-19: coronavirus disease 2019, EPAG: eltrombopag, PSL: prednisolone
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Cines DB, Bussel JB. SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia. N Engl J Med 384: 2254-2256, 2021. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kragholm K, Sessa M, Mulvad T, et al. . Thrombocytopenia after COVID-19 vaccination. J Autoimmun 123: 102712, 2021. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Tiede A, Sachs UJ, Czwalinna A, et al. . Prothrombotic immune thrombocytopenia after COVID-19 vaccination. Blood 138: 350-353, 2021. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Shah SRA, Dolkar S, Mathew J, Vishnu P. COVID-19 vaccination associated severe immune thrombocytopenia. Exp Hematol Oncol 10: 42, 2021. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Toom S, Wolf B, Avula A, Peeke S, Becker K. Familial thrombocytopenia flare-up following the first dose of mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccine. Am J Hematol 96: E134-E135, 2021. - PMC - PubMed