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13% Mortality Rate in Vaccinated Cancer Patients With Breakthrough COVID-19
https://scitechdaily.com ^ | January 12, 2022 | By BROWN UNIVERSITY

Posted on 01/12/2022 9:40:18 AM PST by Red Badger

Brown University researchers are part of a consortium tracking the impact of COVID-19 on patients with cancer.

The first study to evaluate the clinical characteristics and outcomes of vaccinated (but not boosted) patients with cancer who had breakthrough COVID-19 infections indicates they remained at high risk for hospitalization and death.

The study, published in Annals of Oncology, showed that vaccinated patients who experienced breakthrough COVID-19 infections had a hospitalization rate of 65%, an ICU or mechanical ventilation rate of 19% and a 13% death rate. Data for the study was collected before booster vaccines were recommended for patients with cancer by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study was conducted by the COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium, a group of 129 research centers that is tracking the impact of COVID-19 on patients with cancer. The Lifespan Cancer Institute and partner Brown University are among the participating institutions.

“These findings come at a time of concerns that immune escape mutants such as the omicron strain may emerge from chronically infected patients with weakened immune systems, said Dr. Dimitrios Farmakiotis, a senior author of the study. “Thus, the immunosuppressed and their close contacts should be target groups for therapeutic and preventive interventions, including community-level outreach and educational efforts.”

Farmakiotis is an associate professor of medicine at Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School and director of transplant and oncology infectious diseases at Rhode Island Hospital, the Lifespan Cancer Institute and the Lifespan Cardiovascular Institute.

Similar high COVID-19 mortality rates among fully vaccinated individuals have been reported in other immunocompromised patient populations, such as organ transplant recipients, prior to the utilization of additional vaccine doses, he said.

At the time the study was conducted, patients were considered fully vaccinated after having received two doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or the Moderna vaccine, or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, with the last dose long enough before breakthrough COVID-19 to consider them fully vaccinated. The data were collected from November 2020 through May 2021, before booster vaccines were recommended by the CDC.

The consortium identified 1,787 patients with cancer and COVID-19 for the study, the vast majority of which were unvaccinated. The number of fully vaccinated was 54, and 46% of those fully vaccinated had reduced levels of lymphocytes — the T cells and B cells responsible for immunological responses to viruses. Lymphopenia commonly occurs in patients with cancer receiving anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies or CAR-T-cell treatments for hematologic malignancies, including lymphoma and leukemia.

The study appears to support previous observations that patients with hematologic malignancies are at greater risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19. However, the number of patients in the study is too small to make definitive conclusions about specific types of anticancer therapies that might be associated with breakthrough infections, the researchers noted. Patients on a treatment regimen of corticosteroids also appeared to be more susceptible to hospitalization.

“Because measures of immunity are not routinely collected in clinical care, we don’t know whether these were patients who mounted effective immune responses after vaccination; a lot of emerging data have suggested that patients with cancer, especially blood cancers, don’t mount adequate protective antibody responses,” said Dr. Jeremy Warner, director of the CCC19 Research Coordinating Center, associate professor at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and a senior author of the study. “It’s important to note that many of the same factors that we identified prior to the availability of vaccination — age, comorbidities, performance status, and progressing cancer — still seem to drive many of the bad outcomes.”

For more on this research, see 13% Mortality Rate in Fully Vaccinated Patients With Cancer Who Had Breakthrough COVID-19.

Reference: “COVID-19 Vaccination and Breakthrough Infections in Patients with Cancer” by A.L. Schmidt, C. Labaki, C.-Y. Hsu, Z. Bakouny, N. Balanchivadze, S.A. Berg, S. Blau, A. Daher, T. El Zarif, C.R. Friese, E.A. Griffiths, J.E. Hawley, B. Hayes-Lattin, V. Karivedu, T. Latif, B.H. Mavromatis, R.R. McKay, G. Nagaraj, R.H. Nguyen, O.A. Panagiotou, A.J. Portuguese, M. Puc, M. Santos Dutra, B.A. Schroeder, A. Thakkar, E.M. Wulff-Burchfield, S. Mishra, D. Farmakiotis, Yu Shyr, J.L. Warner and T.K. Choueiri, on behalf of theCOVID-19 and Cancer Consortium, 24 December 2021, Annals of Oncology. DOI: 10.1016/j.annonc.2021.12.006

The study’s lead authors are Andrew Schmidt, Chris Labaki, Ziad Bakouny, all from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; and Chih-Yuan Hsu of Vanderbilt-University Medical Center. The senior authors are Choueiri of Harvard, Farmakiotis of Brown University, and Warner and Yu Shyr, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Other Brown contributors included Orestis Panagiotou.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Health/Medicine; History; Society
KEYWORDS: vaccines

1 posted on 01/12/2022 9:40:18 AM PST by Red Badger
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To: Red Badger

What’s the covid death rate for unvaccinated cancer patients?

What’s the covid infection rate for vaccinated vs unvaccinated cancer patients?


2 posted on 01/12/2022 9:44:41 AM PST by heartwood (Someone has to play devil's advocate.)
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To: Red Badger

Maybe, years down the Covid road, some brave MD will tell the world,”Recommending Covid Vaccines for cancer patients and any patient with weakened immune systems could have been a death sentence for those receiving the vaccinations.

“The study appears to support previous observations that patients with hematologic malignancies are at greater risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19. However, the number of patients in the study is too small to make definitive conclusions about specific types of anticancer therapies that might be associated with breakthrough infections, the researchers noted. Patients on a treatment regimen of corticosteroids also appeared to be more susceptible to hospitalization.

“Because measures of immunity are not routinely collected in clinical care, we don’t know whether these were patients who mounted effective immune responses after vaccination; a lot of emerging data have suggested that patients with cancer, especially blood cancers, don’t mount adequate protective antibody responses,” said Dr. Jeremy Warner, director of the CCC19 Research Coordinating Center, associate professor at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and a senior author of the study. “It’s important to note that many of the same factors that we identified prior to the availability of vaccination — age, comorbidities, performance status, and progressing cancer — still seem to drive many of the bad outcomes.”

For more on this research, see 13% Mortality Rate in Fully Vaccinated Patients With Cancer Who Had Breakthrough COVID-19.”


3 posted on 01/12/2022 9:45:48 AM PST by Grampa Dave (Nietzsche: “Everything the State says is a lie, and everything the State has. It was stolen!”)
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To: Red Badger
My son had the J&J. He's in Virginia and very isolated except for his appts at the Cancer center. We just keep praying.

My granddaughter is at Brown...PHD in Pharmacology and Physiology. 6 months to go!!

4 posted on 01/12/2022 9:45:57 AM PST by Sacajaweau ( )
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To: Red Badger

all covid cases are breakthrough cases. There is no real vaccine.


5 posted on 01/12/2022 9:50:58 AM PST by for-q-clinton (Cancel Culture IS fascism...Let's start calling it that!)
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To: Red Badger

Cancer is a really broad category. Moreover, even with true vaccines for other diseases, results may not be comparable because the immune system is so compromised. How can we group someone with early stage prostate cancer with someone with advanced pancreatic cancer, or any cancer that has metastasized?

I am all for exposing the problems with these Covid shots, but I don’t find this particular statistic to be useful.

Occasional Disclaimer: Dr. Sivana is not a medical doctor. He is a fictitious comic book doctor of the “Mad Scientist” category.


6 posted on 01/12/2022 9:55:22 AM PST by Dr. Sivana ("There are only men and women."-- George Gilder, Sexual Suicide, 1973)
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To: Dr. Sivana

Probably better than DOCTOR Fausti and DOCTOR Jilly...............


7 posted on 01/12/2022 10:13:50 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger

Need to know what stages of cancer, or the differing %’s of death for different stages. For instance, It might be that stage one only had a 1%machine of death, while stage 4 had 30%


8 posted on 01/12/2022 10:18:26 AM PST by Bob434
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To: Red Badger
I don't know, He probably inspired the main stream media.

And no, I don't know why everyone nearby didn't go deaf. It's a comic book.
9 posted on 01/12/2022 10:35:42 AM PST by Dr. Sivana ("There are only men and women."-- George Gilder, Sexual Suicide, 1973)
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To: Dr. Sivana

https://hearsmart.org/what-problem/decibels-and-damage/


10 posted on 01/12/2022 10:38:28 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger

Wait…what?
This was their trial group size?
54 vaccinated patients, half with Lymphophemia?

Caused by the vaccine?

“The consortium identified 1,787 patients with cancer and COVID-19 for the study, the vast majority of which were unvaccinated. The number of fully vaccinated was 54, and 46% of those fully vaccinated had reduced levels of lymphocytes — the T cells and B cells responsible for immunological responses to viruses. Lymphopenia commonly occurs in patients with cancer receiving anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies or CAR-T-cell treatments for hematologic malignancies, including lymphoma and leukemia.”

Lots of hemming hawing and equivocation in this study…which is being used to drive booster shots ( which other studies are showing to progressively degrade innate immunity) into immuno- compromised people!
To give them what…at best another 8-10 weeks of artificially stimulated selective antibodies and overall inferior immune systems?


11 posted on 01/12/2022 11:30:32 AM PST by silverleaf (“Freedom ultimately means the right of other people to do things that you disagree with”. T. Sowell )
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