European journal of case reports in internal medicine
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COVID-19, also called severe acute respiratory distress syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), originated in Wuhan, China. It has caused significant morbidity and mortality worldwide and has been declared a global pandemic by the WHO. Influenza occurs mainly during the winter, with the burden of disease determined by several factors, including the effectiveness of the vaccine that season, the characteristics of the circulating viruses, and how long the season lasts. We describe the case of a 66-year-old woman who was diagnosed with influenza A and COVID-19 co-infection.
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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a pandemic on 11 March 2020. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is a real-time bedside tool used by physicians to guide rapid, focused and accurate evaluation in order to identify or rule out various pathologies. We describe the case of an elderly man who had fallen at home 3 days previously and was hypoxic at presentation to the emergency department (ED). POCUS in the ED helped to identify a combination of lung and vascular involvement that indicated COVID-19 infection, which was confirmed by a laboratory test.
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Eur J Case Rep Intern Med · Jan 2020
Meralgia Paraesthetica after Prone Position Ventilation in a Patient with COVID-19.
One of the most feared complications of COVID-19 is respiratory failure caused by acute respiratory distress syndrome. In order to improve oxygenation and survival, patients admitted to intensive care units and intubated may undergo prone position mechanical ventilation. Prolonged prone positioning may cause meralgia paraesthetica due to lateral femoral cutaneous nerve entrapment between the inguinal ligament and the anterior superior iliac spine. Reports of the first two cases have been recently published. ⋯ COVID-19 may require intubation and mechanical ventilation because of respiratory distress.Prone position ventilation improves oxygenation, but may cause lateral femoral cutaneous nerve entrapment and meralgia paraesthetica.Medical personnel should be aware of the risk of meralgia paraesthetica as a disabling condition potentially affecting more patients as the COVID-19 pandemic persists.
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Eur J Case Rep Intern Med · Jan 2020
Kawasaki-like Syndrome as an Emerging Complication of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Young Adults.
Kawasaki-like syndrome occurring in children during the COVID-19 pandemic has been labelled multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) by the CDC and paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome temporally associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection (PIMS-TS) by the ECDC. ⋯ SARS-CoV-2 infection is a diagnostic challenge in some patients with atypical clinical presentations, who may have MIS-C/PIMS-TS.Physicians should be aware of this condition when evaluating teenagers and young adults with COVID-19.
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Eur J Case Rep Intern Med · Jan 2020
Tocilizumab in Severe COVID-19 Pneumonia and Concomitant Cytokine Release Syndrome.
Younger patients with COVID-19 may experience an exaggerated immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and develop cytokine release syndrome (CRS), which may be life threatening. There is no proven antiviral therapy for COVID-19 so far, but profound immunosuppression has recently been suggested as a treatment for COVID-19-associated CRS. We present a case of life-threatening CRS caused by COVID-19 infection with a favourable response to immunosuppressive therapy with tocilizumab (TCZ). The rapid clinical and biochemical improvement following TCZ administration suggests that treatment with immunotherapy can be life-saving in selected patients with COVID-19-induced CRS.