ARTICLE ABOUT CLL PATIENTS AND COVID VACCINE RESPONSE TODAY IN WASHINGTON POST

[Palmetto]

Article today from the Washington Post about immunocompromised and the covid vaccines lack of effectiveness. Not good news but suspected. washingtonpost.com/health/2...

If you can't get there because it is a paid site this is the specific reference to CLL patients:

‘Disheartening’

The results have been more disappointing for some other types of immunocompromised patients.

Mounzer Agha, a hematologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and lead author of a study on blood cancers and the vaccines posted online before peer review, described how crushed he felt when he saw the low antibody results for nearly half of the 67 patients his group tracked.

Patients on treatments that impact B-cell function appeared to have the weakest results. That made sense to him because B cells produce antibodies.

But the data also contained what he called an “unwelcome surprise”: Patients with a condition known as chronic lymphocytic leukemia had a very weak response even if they were not undergoing treatment. The condition, which affects the blood and bone marrow, can sometimes be asymptomatic.

“When I found patients who had never received therapy still did not respond to the vaccine, that was very disheartening,” he said. “Now what are you going to do for these individuals?”

Agha said his clinic has been scrambling to reassess care plans in the context of the pandemic. Some patients who are more stable are taking cancer treatment “holidays” while they get the vaccine; others have opted to forgo the shots.

“The information has come out so recently that there are no clinical guidelines, and decisions have to be made on a case-by-case basis on the fly,” he said.

Agha said he fears that for some patients, the vaccines may never work even at higher doses, and that they will have to rely on the inoculation of those around them for their safety.

[Shepherd777]

Has there been any study on CLL patients that got the covid-19 disease and survived? Do they have a better immunity than the vaccine might give? My wife survived the Covid-19 disease and actually fared better with it than I did. She has been in clinical remission from Venetoclax for 29 months. Did that help her to beat the Covid-19?

[bkoffman CLL CURE Hero in reply to Shepherd777]

No data yet- working on it.

[bkoffman CLL CURE Hero]

May need to look at passive immunity with mAbs and better antivirals.