Research: Vaccines are safe in most patients with lung cancer

Coronavirus mRNA vaccines are safe and effective in lung cancer patients, most of whom gain immune protection after two doses, according to a new French scientific study.

It was also found that when a third booster dose was given to 11% of patients who had low levels of antibodies after the two doses, then almost nine out of ten (88%) also acquired adequate antibody protection.

Although vaccines Covid-19 have long been shown to be generally safe and effective in the general population, little was known about whether patients with lung / thoracic cancer develop an adequate immune response, as they were initially excluded from most vaccine trials. Also previous studies had shown that these patients had a mortality of about 30% of Covid-19, significantly larger than the general population.

Researchers at Bichat-Claude Bernard University Hospital in Paris, published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, studied 306 lung cancer patients with a mean age of 67 years. Of these, 283 had received two doses of Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine 28 days apart (those who had coronavirus antibodies due to a previous infection Covid-19, made only one dose).

After six to seven months, only eight patients (2,6%) had developed Covid-19 with symptoms, but with a favorable outcome of the disease. 34 (11%) had very low levels of antibodies, especially the elderly, those who had undergone chemotherapy in the last trimester and those who had received long-term treatment with corticosteroids. The 30 gave a third dose and eventually only three patients - who had blood cancers that are known to often not respond well to vaccines - continued to show very low levels of antibodies.

No cases of anaphylaxis were reported. The researchers, however, pointed out the need for their findings to be confirmed by a larger study.

Source: RES-EAP