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Purpose: To report two cases; bilateral arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (AAION) and bilateral acute zonal occult outer retinopathy (AZOOR) after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. Case Reports: The first patient was a 79-year-old female was presented to us 35 days after a sudden bilateral loss of vision, which occurred two days after receiving the second recombinant mRNA vaccine (Pfizer) injection. Temporal artery biopsy was compatible with AAION. At presentation, the best-corrected visual acuity was 20/1250 and 20/40 in the right and left eyes on the Snellen acuity chart, respectively. There was 3+ afferent pupillary defect in the right eye. The anterior segment and posterior segment exams were normal except for pallor of the optic nerve head in both eyes. Intraocular pressure was normal in both eyes. She was diagnosed with bilateral AAION and Subcutaneous tocilizumab 162 mg weekly was recommended with monitoring her ESR, CRP, and IL-6. The second patient was a 33-year-old healthy female who was referred to us for a progressive nasal field defect in her left eye, and for flashes in both eyes. Her symptoms started 10 days after receiving the second recombinant mRNA vaccine (Moderna) injection. Complete bloodwork performed by a uveitis specialist demonstrated high ESR (25) and CRP (19) levels. As a result, she was diagnosed with unilateral AZOOR in her left eye and was subsequently treated with an intravitreal dexamethasone implant in the same eye. At presentation, vision was20/20 in both eyes. The anterior segment and posterior segment exams were completely normal except for the presence of abnormal white reflex in the temporal macula of her left eye. We diagnosed her with bilateral AZOOR. Since she was nursing, intravitreal dexamethasone implant was recommended for the right eye. Conclusion: There may be a correlation between ocular inflammatory diseases with autoimmune mechanism and the mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.

Ocular cicatricial pemphigoid (OCP) is an autoimmune blistering disease that affects the conjunctiva and multiple mucous membranes. Class I and H and complement genetic markers of the major histocompatibility complex were studied in 20 Caucasian OCP patients and members of their families. Frequencies of individual alleles and common fixed or extended haplotypes in the patients were compared with those in normal family control haplotypes and with overall normal Caucasian haplotypes. The most striking increase compared with overall controls was noted in HLA-DQw3 (P = 0.006), unassociated with any extended haplotype. All but 1 of the 20 patients carried DQw3 in linkage with HLA-DR4 (increased significantly with P = 0.042 compared with overall normal genotype controls) or DR5. The DQw3, on analysis by restriction fragment length polymorphism in genomic DNA, was, in every instance, DQw7 (3.1, DQB1*0301). The frequency of DQB1*0301 in patient haplotypes compared with overall normal DR4 and DR5 DQw3-bearing haplotypes was statistically significantly increased (P < 0.003, relative risk = 9.6). The distribution of homozygotes and heterozygotes for DQB1*0301 among the patients was consistent with dominant but not recessive inheritance of DQB1*0301 or a gene, probably a class H allele, in linkage disequilibrium with it as the major histocompatibility complex susceptibility gene for OCP.Ocular cicatricial pemphigoid (OCP) is an autoimmune blistering disease that affects multiple mucous membranes (1-3). If not treated or treated inappropriately when it affects the eyes, it can cause blindness. The pathologic processes of chronic cicatrizing conjunctivitis and progressive conjunctival subepithelial fibrosis that characterize this disease result in severe xerosis of the eye and ocular keratinization.The deposition of immunoglobulins and complement components at the basement membrane zone (BMZ) (4-6) of the involved mucosa appears to be pathogenetic. Inflammatory mediators in the preocular tear film contribute to the final pathologic changes (3). Circulating antibodies to BMZ have been demonstrated in the serum of OCP patients, using skin and buccal mucosa as substrate (7,8).There have only been a few studies of HLA antigen frequencies in patients with OCP. The initial reports (6, 9) of an increased frequency of HLA-B12 (HLA-B44 or B45) were not confirmed in later studies (3, 10). Recently (11), we reported an increase in the frequency of the HLA-DR4 allele in OCP patients. In patients with pemphigus vulgaris, the increased frequency of DR4 is ascribable to the increased frequency oftwo haplotypes, SC21, DR4, DQw8] and SC31, DR4, DQw8], particularly in Ashkenazi Jewish patients (12). The first of these is a known extended haplotype (13) (a haplotype with fixed DNA over at least the HLA-B/DR interval) in this ethnic group. In a number of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) alleleassociated diseases, the increase in specific alleles is secondary to the increase in one or more extended haplotypes that carry suscepti...

ERG can serve as a useful adjunct in helping determine when to initiate tapering of immunosuppressive therapy in patients with birdshot retinochoroidopathy.