Mayo Clinic warns cancer patients with cancer not getting COVID 19 vaccine

Florida US January 22 ANI A new study has found patients with cancer who receive chemotherapy and some targeted therapies may have an inadequate immune response to COVID 19 vaccination.

The research was published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings: Innovation, Quality Outcomes Journal.

Saranya Chumsri, M.D., said it is important for patients with cancer who are receiving chemotherapy to receive a COVID 19 vaccine. A Mayo Clinic hematologist and oncologist, and author of the paper.

Patients with cancer who are taking a CDK 4 6 inhibitor are also given this advice, according to Dr Chumsri. These inhibitors are a new class of medicines used to treat hormone-receptor positive and HER 2 negative breast cancers.

Her research on patients with breast cancer who take these drugs found that they showed less optimal neutralizing antibody activity, even though CDK 4 inhibitors are not conventionally considered to be as immunosuppressive as chemotherapy.

After vaccination, a booster vaccine for COVID- 19 patients should be tested, and they should consider receiving booster vaccines, according to Dr Chumsri.