Severe refractory thrombocytopenia in a woman positive for coronavirus disease 2019 with lupus and antiphospholipid syndrome

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has created new challenges that necessitate prompt responses in unexpected clinical situations. Multiple extrapulmonary manifestations and complications of COVID-19 have already been described, but only scattered data are present on immunologic manifestations. We present a case of severe refractory thrombocytopenia in a 51-year-old woman with a history of long-standing systemic lupus erythematosus and antiphospholipid syndrome who presented with hemoptysis in the setting of COVID-19 infection. The patient failed to respond to initial treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin, high-dose steroids, and platelet transfusion, but responded to eltrombopag, with prompt improvement of a platelet count. The current case report provides clinical data of relevance to the largely unexplored question of the immunologic complications of COVID-19 in patients with a pre-existing inflammatory state.