Posted on 10/22/2025 11:20:48 AM PDT by nickcarraway
3-year survival twice as high with mRNA vaccine in lung cancer patients receiving immunotherapy
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients starting immunotherapy were nearly twice as likely to be alive 3 years later if they got a COVID-19 vaccine around the time of treatment, a researcher reported here.
Retrospective data in advanced NSCLC found that mRNA COVID vaccination within 100 days of initiating a checkpoint inhibitor was associated with higher 3-year survival rates compared with no vaccination (55.8% vs 30.6%; adjusted HR 0.51, 95% CI 0.37-0.71, P<0.0001), according to Adam Grippin, MD, PhD, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Analyses in metastatic melanoma mirrored the results, with 3-year survival rates of 67.5% and 44.1%, respectively (adjusted HR 0.34, 95% CI 0.17-0.69, P=0.0029), findings presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) congress showed.
Preclinical work from the research team demonstrated how mRNA vaccination can induce a surge in type I interferon-dependent immunity -- priming T cells to infiltrate tumors -- and analysis of tumor expression profiles found vaccination to be associated with increased levels of PD-L1, a prime target of blockbuster immunotherapy drugs.
"Widely available COVID mRNA vaccines sensitize tumors to immune checkpoint inhibitors," Grippin said in his presentation, adding that phase III trials are underway to determine whether these vaccines should be incorporated into standard treatment.
PD-1-targeted checkpoint inhibitors such as nivolumab (Opdivo) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) have become a mainstay of NSCLC and melanoma treatment in recent years (along with countless other cancer types), leading to dramatically longer survival and potential cures for some patients.
However, only a fraction of patients respond to immunotherapy, said Grippin, and countless efforts have been made to turn patients with immunologically "cold" tumors into responders. He noted that while personalized mRNA cancer vaccines can sensitize tumors to immune checkpoint blockade, the approach is expensive and slow to produce. And recent preclinical work has demonstrated that even mRNA vaccines not designed to target tumor antigens can still elicit antitumor responses.
"The really exciting part of our work is that it points to the possibility that widely available, low-cost vaccines have the potential to dramatically improve the effectiveness of certain immune therapies," Grippin said in a press release. "We are hopeful that mRNA vaccines could not only improve outcomes for patients being treated with immunotherapies but also bring the benefits of these therapies to patients with treatment-resistant disease."
Another analysis presented at ESMO showed no association with flu vaccination and survival in cancer patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors.
In the current study, the association between mRNA COVID vaccination and survival was strongest among patients whose tumors harbored the lowest levels of PD-L1 expression (tumor proportion score [TPS] <1%), a group that typically doesn't respond well to PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitors:
<1%: HR 0.44 (95% CI 0.31-0.63) 1-49%: HR 0.67 (95% CI 0.40-1.13) ≥50%: HR 0.56 (95% CI 0.34-0.90) Looking at the effect of vaccination on PD-L1 expression revealed significant differences in the proportion of patient biopsies with a TPS of 50% or greater after a COVID vaccine (35% vs 28%, P=0.0295), suggesting an increase in tumors likely to respond to immunotherapy.
For their study, the researchers used institutional databases to retrospectively examine survival outcomes by mRNA COVID vaccination status in cancer patients undergoing immunotherapy. The study included individuals with available biopsies from August 2019 to August 2023.
The NSCLC cohort comprised patients with stage III/IV disease, including 180 who received a COVID vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy and 704 patients who did not get a COVID shot. When broken down by tumor stage, the association between vaccination and increased survival was observed in both stage III (HR 0.37, 95% CI 0.16-0.89) and stage IV (HR 0.51, 95% CI 0.36-0.72) cancers.
The melanoma cohort included patients with metastatic disease, 43 of whom received a vaccine within 100 days of immunotherapy treatment and 167 patients who did not receive a COVID vaccine.
Analyses adjusted for patients' performance status, tumor stage and mutational status, use of steroids or other concurrent therapies, TPS, presence of central nervous system metastasis, and comorbidities.
Results for both tumor types were similar in propensity-score matched analyses as well.
A study limitation was that it was unclear whether a reduction in COVID-19 deaths with vaccination may have contributed to the differences in overall survival, as multiple studies have shown decreases in severe outcomes from the coronavirus in cancer patients who get vaccinated.
Ian Ingram is Managing Editor at MedPage Today and helps cover oncology for the site.
BS.
Seems the COVID vaccine is good at everything except preventing actual COVID.
What they leave out is that the COVID shot is what caused the cancer in the first place...
Who are the study participants?
Did the vaxxed weakest/unhealthiest die (e.g., directly from the vax) before the study began, leaving the healthiest vaxxed behind to participate in comparison to unvaxxed strong and weak?
Probably.
Basically, the study supports the notion of the strongest, regardless of the intervention, survive the longest.
At this point, are the patients even real (#surgisphere)?
Keep in mind it only relates to those receiving immunotherapy which usually doesn’t work that well anyway. It does not say it is a cure.
This seems like some BS to get people to take these killer fake jabs.
Seems more like this clot shot is good at causing all kinds of disease, including cancer.
If I’m inferring this right…. The covid mRNA vax either enhanced the immune system to fight the cancer or affected the tumors in such a way that the immune system could better fight them.
If the former it shows that the mRNA therapy makes the immune system go out of whack.
I note that there is no link to the actual study.
Total BS.
I detect the feint whiff of bovine excrement.
Total CaCa!
I wonder who paid for this study.
All COVID Vaccines Increase Cancer Risk, 2025 South Korean Study Concludes
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4347986/posts
Probably not BS.
The mRNA shot doesn’t work as a vaccine very well or at all.
But it is an immune system adjuvant.
It’s the same reason there are cases of myocarditis in many young recipients. It stimulates an overall immune response due to the presence of RNA.
It helps this immunotherapy cancer treatment.
In other cases it can cause unnecessary immune response which can damage heart tissue.
Yeah....NO
Yet another government funded study.
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