A Ten-Year Review of Dermal Filler Adverse Events and Vaccination

Alexander H. Sun, MD, MHS1, Michele Manahan, MD, MBA1

1Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD

Following the authorization of two mRNA COVID-19 vaccinations in December 2020, there was increased media attention surrounding reactions to vaccination associated with dermal filler use. Dermal filler adverse events are reported as medical device reports (MDRs) to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This project seeks to characterize reporting for dermal filler adverse events associated with vaccination over a 10-year period.

The MAUDE database was accessed to perform a search of all publicly-available MDRs for the “LMH” product code. This query included all reports from 1/1/2011 up to and including 6/30/2021. These reports were searched for whether they included the text “vacc*” or “immuniz*” to represent variations of the words vaccination or immunization, respectively. Reports were excluded based on the Flow Diagram in Figure 1. 

A review of literature was performed on November 21, 2021 in Pubmed using the following search strategy:

In total, there were 10,137 MDRs found for the product code LMH from the period of January 1, 2011 until June 30, 2021. Sixty-one of these included search terms related to vaccination or immunization, and were then reviewed in detail. After excluding duplicates, literature, and reports with other known mechanisms, 19 reports were included. Figure 1 shows the flow diagram for inclusion and exclusion of reports for review.

Timing of Reports and Associated Vaccination (Figure 2)

Filler Composition and Location of Injection (Table 1)

Reactions and Timing of Reaction