Symptoms and steroid dose adjustments following the Covid-19 vaccine in patients with adrenal insufficiency.

BACKGROUND: A proportion of patients with adrenal insufficiency (AI) require increases in their maintenance glucocorticoids following the Covid-19 vaccine as a result of vaccine-related symptoms or development of incipient or frank adrenal crisis. In a large cohort of AI patients, we aim to characterise symptoms, changes in glucocorticoid dosage, occurrence of adrenal crises and whether there are differences between the mRNA and adenovirus vector vaccines. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients with AI of any aetiology were invited to complete a short, structured questionnaire of their experience of the Covid-19 vaccination. RESULTS: 279 of the 290 patients enrolled to this study fully completed the questionnaires. 176, 100 and 3 received the Astra Zeneca (AZ), Pfizer-BioNTech (PB) and Moderna (MD) as initial vaccine respectively; and for the second vaccine, 170, 99 and 10 received AZ, PB and MD respectively. Moderate to severe symptoms occurred in 44.8 and 39.7% after the first and second vaccines respectively, were of early onset (6.0 h, IQR 2-12 &. 6.0 h, IQR 2-24 h) and short duration (24 h, IQR 12-72 h & 26 h, IQR 12-72 h). 34.4 and 29.7% increased their maintenance glucocorticoid dose. DISCUSSION: The Covid-19 vaccines appear well-tolerated in patients with AI, with similar frequency of symptoms to that reported in the background population. The AZ vaccine leads to slightly greater post-vaccination symptom burden and need to increase glucocorticoid dosage, but this does not translate to greater adverse outcomes.

ChAdOx1 SARS-CoV-2 vaccination: A putative precipitant of adrenal crises.

BACKGROUND: Patients with adrenal insufficiency (AI) have excess mortality, in part due to the occurrence of life-threatening adrenal crises. Infective processes, including that of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), are recognised as the major precipitant of adrenal crises. Adverse reactions to the ChAdOx1 SARS-CoV-2 vaccine occur in a significant proportion of individuals, however, are mild-moderate in the majority of cases. DESIGN: Case series. PATIENTS & RESULTS: We describe five cases where more severe adverse reactions to the ChAdOx1 SARS-CoV-2 vaccine led to actual or incipient adrenal crises requiring parenteral hydrocortisone within 24 h of receiving the first ChAdOx1 SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. CONCLUSION: In individuals with adrenal insufficiency, adverse reactions to the initial dose of the ChAdOx1 SARS-CoV-2 vaccination can precipitate adrenal crises. We recommend that patients with AI should immediately increase their maintenance glucocorticoid dosage 2-3 fold on experiencing any symptoms in the initial 24 h following vaccination.

Refractory paraneoplastic hypercalcaemia responding to cinacalcet.

A woman in her late 70s presented with an increased frequency of micturition, suprapubic pain and weight loss. She was found to be having advanced cancer of the urinary bladder, coupled with bilateral hydronephrosis.Whilst undergoing surgical intervention for the latter, she was incidentally found to be having hypercalcaemia. This was found to be paraneoplastic in nature, possibly due to elevated parathyroid hormone related peptide with no evidence of bone metastasis. The histology of the resected tumour revealed squamous and sarcomatoid differentiation. Her hypercalcaemia initially responded to intravenous fluids, and later on zolendronate,but the problem recurred again, with the response to a repeat dose of zolendronate and even denosumab being unsatisfactory. As a last resort cinacalcet was started, and although there was a good response to it, our patient sadly died a few weeks later.We believe our case to be the first case of hypercalcaemia associated with isolated bladder cancer which showed a successful response to cinacalcet.