Case Report: A 29-Year-Old Pregnant Woman at 24 Weeks of Gestation Presenting with Laryngotracheitis and COVID-19 Due to the R.1 Variant of SARS-CoV-2

Objective: Unusual clinical courseBackground: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was discovered in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) mainly presents with lower respiratory tract symptoms. On the other hand, laryngotracheitis or croup shows barky cough and it is rare in adults. There were no reports of laryngo-tracheitis with COVID-19 in pregnant women. We report the case of a pregnant woman at 24 weeks of gesta-tion presenting with acute laryngotracheitis and COVID-19 due to the R.1 variant of SARS-CoV-2.Case Report: A 29-year-old previously healthy woman at 24 weeks of gestation presented with hoarseness and sore throat without fever, of 1-day duration. Although she was treated by her primary care physician with nebulized epi-nephrine, her symptoms did not resolve. She came to our hospital the same day. On arrival at our department, she was tachypneic and had a 95% oxygen saturation. She had stridor and barking cough. Laryngeal endosco-py revealed edema under the vocal cords. She was hospitalized urgently. SARS-CoV-2 polymerase chain reac-tion (PCR) testing was positive and the E484K mutation was confirmed. She was treated with oral and inhaled corticosteroids. Two days after admission, her symptoms were improved. She was discharged 10 days after admission. Edema under the vocal cords was completely improved 24 days after discharge. There were no ad-verse effects on the pregnancy. Conclusions: COVID-19 laryngotracheitis has a more severe disease course than other causes, especially in pregnancy. COVID-19 laryngotracheitis should be use corticosteroids to treatment. Prednisolone is recommended for la-ryngotracheitis with COVID-19 during pregnancy.