COVID-19-positivity in a heart transplant recipient—antibody-mediated rejection or SARS-CoV-2-associated cardiac injury?

Abstract

Through the ongoing and heightening coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the heart has been implicated as a central target of injury associated with significantly increased morbidity and mortality. Correspondingly, heart transplant recipients are a vulnerable population for which insufficient research has been conducted. Pathologic antibody-mediated rejection (pAMR) of cardiac allografts shares many characteristics with COVID-19-associated cardiac injury. In this case study, we investigate a 57-year-old female who contracted COVID-19 11 days postheart transplant and was observed to have pAMR while positive for laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, resulting in a diagnostic conundrum.