94% of patients with cancer respond well to COVID-19 vaccines

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In a U.S. and Swiss study, nearly all patients with cancer developed good immune response to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines three to four weeks after receiving their second dose, but the fact that a small group of the patients exhibited no response raised questions about how their protection against the virus will be addressed moving forward.

Among the 131 patients studied, 94% developed antibodies to the coronavirus. Seven high-risk patients did not. “We could not find any antibodies against the virus in those patients,” said Dimpy P. Shah, MD, PhD, of the Mays Cancer Center, home to UT Health San Antonio MD Anderson. “That has implications for the future. Should we provide a third dose of vaccine after cancer therapy has completed in certain high-risk patients?”

Dr. Shah is corresponding author of the study, published in the high-impact journal Cancer Cell. Coauthors are from the Mays Cancer Center and the University of Geneva.

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Cancer Cell. Pre-proof Study Paper (PDF file):

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