COVID-19: Vaccination also protects people with blood cancer
Researchers at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg, LMU Munich and LMU Klinikum show that a vaccination also protects people with lymphoma and multiple myeloma from severe courses of COVID-19
People with blood cancers often have an immune deficiency and therefore an increased risk of severe COVID-19 disease. In addition, some cancer therapies mean that these patients produce little or no antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 after COVID-19 vaccination. However, vaccination can also activate so-called T cells, which are particularly responsible for the long-term immune response. A team led by physicians Dr. Andrea Keppler-Hafkemeyer and Dr. Christine Greil from the Department of Medicine I at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg and virologist Prof. Dr. Oliver T. Keppler from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) has now characterized in detail the course of the vaccination response of patients with blood cancer who were vaccinated against corona a total of three times over several months. Their results also allow conclusions to be drawn about protection against serious illnesses caused by SARS-CoV2. The study was published on December 21, 2022 in the journal Nature Cancer.
Strong T-cell response to the COVID-19 vaccination
The study focused on patients with two forms of blood cancer: lymphoma and multiple myeloma. "Our results show that almost all study participants had a strong T-cell response to the COVID-19 vaccination," explains Keppler-Hafkemeyer, a physician from Freiburg. "This may have been one of the reasons why breakthrough infections were only mild to moderate, even in the study participants who were unable to produce specific antibodies after vaccination due to their treatment," adds Christine Greil. The co-study leaders and first authors regularly care for patients with blood cancers at the Department of Medicine I at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg.
Keppler's research group specializes in investigating not only the concentration of antibodies after vaccination, but also their quality. This depends in particular on the strength of the binding between antibodies and the viral spike protein. The ability of the antibodies to neutralize different SARS-CoV-2 variants in cell culture also plays an important role. In a next step, the scientists therefore also compared the quantity and quality of antibodies and T-cell responses against the spike protein after two and three COVID-19 vaccinations in patients with blood cancer and in healthy volunteers.
High-quality antibodies against different SARS-CoV-2 variants
The result of the study: patients who are able to produce antibodies produce antibodies of particularly high quality. These are already able to neutralize and thus inactivate different SARS-CoV-2 variants after the second vaccination. This ability is much more pronounced in this group of patients than in vaccinated healthy people.
"COVID-19 vaccination can induce very broad antiviral immunity - including highly potent neutralizing antibodies - in various blood cancers. Multiple vaccination can therefore be recommended for patients with lymphoma or multiple myeloma without interrupting therapy," summarizes Oliver Keppler.
Original title of the publication: Potent high-avidity neutralizing antibodies and T cell responses after COVID-19 vaccination in individuals with B cell lymphoma and multiple myeloma. Nature Cancer 2022
DOI: 10.1038/s43018-022-00502-x
Contact:
Dr. Andrea Keppler-Hafkemeyer
Specialist
Department of Medicine I (Specialties: Hematology, Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation)
Medical Center - University of Freiburg
andrea.hafkemeyer@uniklinik-freiburg.de
Prof. Oliver T. Keppler
Max von Pettenkofer Institute
LMU Munich
keppler@mvp.lmu.de
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