Annular elastolytic giant cell granuloma after COVID-19 vaccination

Abstract

The pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 during the first years of the 2020s led to a great commitment to develop effective vaccines. Despite of the good safety and tolerability profile, vaccines may trigger a broad spectrum of cutaneous side effects. Granulomatous dermatitis has been rarely reported after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines, but no cases of annular elastolytic giant cell granuloma have been already described. Moreover, in our case, it was also associated with a central area of mid-dermal elastolysis, confirming the strong association between these two diseases already reported in literature. The observation of occasional eosinophils within the infiltrate and the presentation of the cutaneous eruption few days after the administration of the second dose of Pfizer/BioNTech (BNT162b2) vaccine are highly suggestive of a drug-related eruption. To our knowledge, this is the first report in literature of an annular elastolytic giant cell granuloma as an adverse effect of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.

Keywords

• COVID-19 vaccination
• elastic fibers
• elastophagocytosis
• granulomatous dermatitis
• mid-dermal elastolysis