Patients with nasopharyngeal cancer are usually treated with drugs that activate their immune system against the tumor. Until now, it was feared that vaccination against Covid-19 could reduce the success of cancer treatment or cause serious side effects. A recent study from the universities of Bonn and Shanxi in the People’s Republic of China now sheds light on this point. Cancer drugs worked better after vaccination with the Chinese SinoVac vaccine than in unvaccinated patients, according to the study. The results are published as a “Letter to the Editor” in the journal Annals of Oncology, but are now available online.
Many cancer cells are able to subvert the body’s immune response. They do this by pushing a kind of button on immune cells, the PD-1 receptor. In this way, they effectively shut down these endogenous defense forces. Drugs can be used to block PD-1 receptors. This allows the immune system to fight the tumor more effectively.
Vaccination against Covid also stimulates the immune response, which involves the PD-1 receptor.
It was feared that the vaccine would not be compatible with anti-PD-1 therapy. This risk is especially true for nasopharyngeal cancer, which, like the SARS Cov-2 virus, affects the upper respiratory tract.”
Dr Jian Li, Institute of Molecular Medicine and Experimental Immunology (IMMEI) of the University Hospital of Bonn
Together with cooperation partners from the People’s Republic of China, the bioinformatician has now investigated whether this concern is justified. More than 1,500 patients treated in 23 hospitals across China participated in the analysis. These multicenter studies are considered particularly informative because the participants are very diverse and, furthermore, the results are not distorted by regional characteristics.
Vaccinated patients responded better to cancer therapy
A subset of 373 affected people had been vaccinated with the Chinese Covid-19 vaccine SinoVac. “Surprisingly, they responded significantly better to anti-PD-1 therapy than unvaccinated patients,” explains Professor Dr. Christian Kurts, director of the IMMEI and member of the “Life & Health” Transdisciplinary Research Area and the ImmunoSensation Cluster of Excellence. “Also, they did not experience serious side effects more often.” The researchers can’t say why the treatment was more successful after the vaccination. “We assume that the vaccination activates certain immune cells, which then attack the tumor,” says Professor Dr. Qi Mei from Shanxi University Hospital. “We will now investigate this hypothesis further.”
Cancer of the nasopharynx is quite rare in this country. In southern China and other Southeast Asian countries, however, the disease is widespread. One suspected reason for this is the frequent use of air conditioning in hot and humid regions. Nutritional factors also appear to play an important role. In Taiwan, nasopharyngeal cancer is now considered one of the leading causes of death among young men.
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Journal reference:
Hua, YJ, et al. (2022) Potentially improved response of nasopharyngeal cancer patients vaccinated against COVID-19 to combination therapy with anti-PD-1 blockade and chemotherapy. Annals of Oncology. doi.org/10.1016/j.annonc.2022.10.002.