'Extremely exciting' discovery: Covid-19 vaccine prolongs life of cancer patients

Washington [US], October 24: Medical records of more than 1,000 cancer patients treated with immunotherapy for lung and skin cancers show they gained additional benefits after receiving an mRNA Covid-19 vaccine.
The Washington Post on October 23 cited a recently published study showing that the Covid-19 vaccine using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology activates a powerful signal that helps mobilize the human immune system to fight cancer and increase the patient's life expectancy.
The retrospective study was conducted by scientists at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Florida in the US.
The study looked at the records of more than 1,000 patients at MD Anderson Cancer Center who began treatment with an immunotherapy approved for advanced non-small cell lung cancer and melanoma - a form of skin cancer.
The research team compared people who had received the mRNA vaccine against Covid-19 with those who had not.
"This data is extremely exciting, but needs to be confirmed in a phase 3 clinical trial," said the study's lead author, Adam Grippin.
Planning for a phase 3 clinical trial is underway and the team hopes to begin recruiting patients later this year, said Grippin, who worked on the project while at the University of Florida and is now a radiation oncologist at MD Anderson.
Messenger RNA vaccines instruct the human immune system without actually infecting the body, by teaching cells to make a harmless part of the virus's protein.
In the latest study, scientists looked at nearly 900 patients with advanced lung cancer who were treated and found that those who received a Covid-19 vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy had a median survival of 37.3 months, compared with 20.6 months in those who did not.
Patients with metastatic melanoma also showed improved median survival when they received the vaccine. Median survival is the time from the start of treatment until 50% of patients in a group have died.
Immunotherapy - called immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy - works by releasing the "brakes" that prevent the immune system from overreacting and attacking healthy cells. When these "brakes" are released, white blood cells called T cells can attack cancer cells.
When asked to respond to the new study, the US Department of Health and Human Services said that "the benefit-risk ratio of Covid-19 vaccination in people under 65 years of age is most appropriate for groups at high risk for severe Covid-19, including the group of patients with advanced cancer analyzed in this hypothesis."
"We have terminated 22 investments in the development of messenger RNA vaccines because data showed they do not provide effective protection against upper respiratory infections such as Covid-19," the ministry added. Many experts have criticized the decision to cancel the investments, arguing that it will adversely affect public health and the development of new vaccines in the future.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper