Coronavirus vaccination is effective in most people with cancer, although many have a weakened immune system due to the disease and their treatments. However, compared to the general population, cancer patients show a faster reduction in immune protection within three to six months of being vaccinated, according to the world’s largest scientific study of the effects of Covid-19 vaccines on people with cancer.
THE British research points out that the effectiveness of vaccines is much lower especially in patients with blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma, those who have recently been diagnosed with cancer, as well as those who have undergone anti-cancer treatment (chemotherapy or radiotherapy) in the last year before their coronavirus vaccination.
Researchers from the Universities of Oxford, Birmingham and Southampton, as well as the UK Health Insurance Agency (UKHSA), led by Dr Leonard Lee of the Oxford Oncology Department, Lancet Oncology, ”analyzed data on 377,194 people with active or recent cancer who had received at least two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.
“We know that people with cancer have a higher risk of serious Covid-19 and that their immune response after vaccination is lower. “Our study is the first and largest in the world to examine the effectiveness of vaccines and their gradual weakening in cancer patients at the population level,” said Lee.
The efficacy of the two doses against the risk of coronavirus infection was found to be 65.5% in cancer patients compared to almost 70% in the general population, which means that the vaccines are effective in most people with cancer. On the other hand, three to six months after the second dose, their effectiveness was reduced to 47% in people with cancer compared to 61.4% in the general population.
While vaccines offer cancer patients higher protection against the risk of hospitalization (83.3%) and death (93.4%) from Covid-19, than against the possibility of infection after vaccination, and this protection against the most Covid-19 weakens faster after three to six months, compared to the general population. The reduction in the effectiveness of vaccines is greater and faster in cases of lymphoma and leukemia.
Peter Johnson, a professor of medical oncology at the University of Southampton, said the new study “highlights the importance of booster vaccines in people with cancer”, especially those with blood cancers.
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