Systemic Cancer Therapy Does Not Significantly Impact Early Vaccine-Elicited SARS-CoV-2 Immunity in Patients with Solid Tumors

Adam T Waickman; Joseph Lu; Corey Chase; Hengsheng Fang; Erinn McDowell; Erin Bingham; Jeffrey Bogart; Stephen Graziano; Stephen J Thomas; Teresa Gentile

doi:10.3390/vaccines10050738

Systemic Cancer Therapy Does Not Significantly Impact Early Vaccine-Elicited SARS-CoV-2 Immunity in Patients with Solid Tumors

Vaccines (Basel). 2022 May 9;10(5):738. doi: 10.3390/vaccines10050738.

Authors

Adam T Waickman^{1

2}, Joseph Lu^{1

2}, Corey Chase³, Hengsheng Fang^{1

2}, Erinn McDowell³, Erin Bingham³, Jeffrey Bogart⁴, Stephen Graziano³, Stephen J Thomas^{1

2}, Teresa Gentile³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Microbiology and Immunology, State University of New York Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA.
² Institute for Global Health and Translational Sciences, State University of New York Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA.
³ Department of Hematology and Oncology, State University of New York Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA.
⁴ Department of Medical Oncology, State University of New York Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA.

Abstract

mRNA vaccines have been shown to be safe and effective in individuals with cancer. It is unclear, however, if systemic anti-cancer therapy impacts the coordinated cellular and humoral immune responses elicited by SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines. To fill this knowledge gap, we assessed SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine-elicited immunity in a cohort of patients with advanced solid tumors either under observation or receiving systemic anti-cancer therapy. This analysis revealed that SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine-elicited cellular and humoral immunity was not significantly different in individuals with cancer receiving systemic anti-cancer therapy relative to individuals under observation. Furthermore, even though some patients exhibited suboptimal antibody titers after vaccination, SARS-CoV-2 specific cellular immune responses were still detected. These data suggest that antibody titers offer an incomplete picture of vaccine-elicited SARS-CoV-2 immunity in cancer patients undergoing active systemic anti-cancer therapy, and that vaccine-elicited cellular immunity exists even in the absence of significant quantities of SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies.

Keywords: COVID-19; T cell response; antibody titer; cancer therapy; vaccine-elicited immunity.

Grants and funding

This work was internally funded by the State University of New York.