Can you have the covid vaccine whilst taking Acalabrutinib

[Catdoe]

Can you have the covid vaccine whilst taking Acalabrutinib

[AussieNeil Administrator]

While you can and probably should be vaccinated while on any BTK inhibitor (acalabrutinib, ibrutinib, zanubrutinib, et al, you may not make many antibodies, because BTKi drugs inhibit all B-cells, both CLL and healthy B-cells. We will know more when the various trials examining how we go with CLL and COVID-19 vaccinations report their findings. Perhaps we will produce some antibodies and maybe T-cell immunity will be more important than expected.

There has been some previous discussion in this community about having a BTK inhibitor holiday in an attempt to have enough healthy B-cells around to develop into the mature plasma cell factories and memory B cells to fight a COVID infection, but it would mean being off the inhibitor drug for at least a month I would suggest. That's far longer than the usual time off for surgery and comes with its own risks.

Neil

[kathymac5252 in reply to AussieNeil]

Just had a video conference with our cancer specialist/researcher this morning....She said there is more than just the spike test for antibodies that will determine whether the Covid vaccine is doing any good for the CLL patients....she said there other indicators with these vaccines...have you heard this as well. She said she is watching the research and the data that is slowly amassing here in the US...

[AussieNeil Administrator in reply to kathymac5252]

As I said, "maybe T-cell immunity will be more important than expected*. This cell mediated immunity osmosis.org/learn/Cell-medi... is much harder to measure than antibody level testing, but researchers looking at the response of immune compromised folk to vaccinations are now examining this after reporting on antibody responses.

Neil

[GolfNole]

Neil’s response is spot on but I will add my personal experience: I have been on acalabrutinib since May of 2020. I got Pfizer vaccines in Jan/Feb of 2021 (with no Calquence “holiday”). I tolerated just fine with no side effects other than a sore arm. I had a COVID antibody test last week and it came back negative (i.e. no COVID antibodies). I was disappointed but not surprised.