For many, the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic seems over. However, for patients whose immune systems are compromised by cancer or by cancer therapies, fear of COVID-19 infection and severe disease remains very real.
Currently, CDC guidance recommends that immunocompromised patients receive COVID-19 booster shots "as needed." While this flexibility is useful for patients with complex medical conditions, more specific guidance is lacking as to when additional COVID-19 boosting would be most effective.
The study, published Aug. 21 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, quantifies the long-term likelihood of future infection among cancer patients undergoing various common therapies after they received updated Pfizer vaccine booster shots. It turns out that most cancer patients are protected nearly as well as the non-cancer population by COVID-19 boosting. But there is a big exception." "Some cancer therapies directly attack immune cells," said the study's co-leader Alex Dornburg, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Related StoriesThe researchers' data-driven model of infection risks over time takes advantage of the large number of immunological studies of SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses. The extensive data available enabled them to assess the long-term risks of infection at a range of frequencies of boosting.
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