For cancer patients undergoing immunotherapy, researchers found that receiving the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine within about 100 days of starting immune checkpoint therapy was associated with substantially better survival.
All patients were treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors, a type of immunotherapy drugs that help the immune system recognize and attack tumor cells more effectively.
Some of the patients received an mRNA COVID vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy and some did not, according to a study press release.
The researchers found that those who received both the vaccine and the immunotherapy lived longer "by a significant amount.".
The greatest survival benefit was seen in patients with immunologically "cold" tumors — those that are typically resistant to immunotherapy.
Among those patients, the addition of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine was linked to a nearly five-fold increase in three-year overall survival.
The researchers suggested that a "universal, off-the-shelf" vaccine could be developed to boost cancer patients’ immune response and survival. »