Acute Tubulointerstitial Nephritis Following COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine: Case Report

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) continues to affect the world, as studies for vaccinations and treatments gather speed. One of the many types of COVID-19 vaccines is messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine, which contains the selected sequence of the viral gene and can translate directly in the host cell’s cytoplasm to produce the target antigen. Several side effects of this type of vaccine have been reported in the literature, including renal complications. However, acute tubulointerstitial nephritis is a very rare complication of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. Here we present a 50-year-old, previously healthy female who presented with renal failure following a COVID-19 mRNA BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccination and diagnosed as acute tubulointerstitial nephritis in the kidney biopsy. To the best of our knowledge, only two cases of acute tubulointerstitial nephritis following COVID-19 vaccine have been reported and one of them had an underlying kidney disease. This is the second case of acute tubulointerstitial nephritis following COVID-19 vaccine in a healthy individual.