Vaccinations are supposed to protect the most vulnerable from a serious Covid-19 infection—but they don’t seem to be doing much for cancer patients.
Fully-vaccinated cancer patients still have a 65 percent chance of needing ICU (intensive care unit) care, and 13 percent died from the infection.
People with blood cancers were at the highest risk, but anyone with a compromised immune system—such as people with an organ transplant—were also poorly protected by a Covid vaccine, say researchers from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
They reviewed the progress of 1,787 cancer patients who caught the Covid virus although, of these, just 54 were fully vaccinated. Worryingly, half of the vaccinated group had reduced levels of T and B cells, the immune system’s first responders to a viral infection.
(Source: Annals of Oncology, 2021; doi: 10.1016/j.ammomc.2021.12.006)
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