A teen’s sudden case of vocal cord paralysis has been linked to a COVID infection days earlier.
The unnamed girl, 15, was rushed to the emergency department when the paralysis caused breathing difficulties nine days after a COVID-19 infection, according to a report published Tuesday in the journal Pediatrics.
The researchers at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, who published the case study, say the case is the first of its kind observed in an adolescent.
The nervous system-related complication, known as post-viral neuropathy, is likely due to “a downstream effect of the COVID-19 virus,” researchers wrote. Doctors have previously reported vocal cord paralysis that affects one or both vocal cords in adults after a COVID bout.
Researchers say the case study can help doctors watch out for a potential vocal cord complication, especially if they complain about breathing, talking or swallowing difficulty after a recent viral infection.
“This is especially important as such complaints could be easily attributed to more common diagnoses such as asthma,” lead author Danielle Reny Larrow, M.D., a resident in the Department of Otolaryngology at Mass Eye and Ear, said in a statement.
To ease the high schooler’s symptoms, doctors tried a number of different approaches, including speech therapy and consulted various specialists. But when everything else failed, they performed a tracheostomy to help her breathe better.
For the procedure, doctors create a hole in the throat to create an opening for the trachea, or windpipe, and place a tube through it to allow air and oxygen to reach the lungs.
“To have a young, healthy, vibrant high schooler all of a sudden lose one of their important cranial nerves such that they can't breathe is highly unusual and took some parsing,” says senior author Christopher Hartnick, M.D., director of the Division of Pediatric Otolaryngology at Mass Eye and Ear, said in a statement.
The tube remained in place for 15 months to help the 15-year-old breathe better. Doctors were able to remove it just in time for the teenager to attend her high school graduation and prom.
