In a new study from Fox Chase Cancer Center, researchers found that mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 are just as safe for people with cancer as they are for cancer-free individuals.
They tracked short-term side-effects from more than 1,753 recipients of the Pfizer BNT162b2 vaccine.
They found no additional reactions for patients undergoing active cancer treatment (surgery, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or radiation therapy) or who had completed treatment.
In the study, the results came from in-person, phone, and online surveys given to people who received two doses of the mRNA vaccine, three weeks apart, between February 16 and May 15, 2021.
A total of 1,183 people with a history of cancer responded to both surveys, with 17.8% undergoing treatment at the time.
Respondents experienced pain at the injection site, muscle pain, joint pain, fever, chills, headache, nausea, and fatigue at similar rates as those reported by people without cancer from the original clinical trials.
Adverse effects for people undergoing immunotherapy also mirrored those in the general population.
The team says patients, their families, and their medical caregivers, should absolutely find these results reassuring.
They surveyed almost 2,000 patients and found that cancer patients aren’t at risk for any unexpected reactions to being vaccinated compared to people without cancer.
They now have the data and the clinical experience from thousands and thousands and thousands of cancer patients who have been vaccinated.
They know that the mRNA vaccines are safe and are absolutely the most effective way to prevent hospitalization and death from COVID-19.
It’s crucial that cancer patients get vaccinated against COVID-19 because they can be particularly vulnerable to infection and its consequences.
If you care about cancer risk, please read studies that years of taking vitamin D can cut cancer death risk, and slow walking pace linked to higher death risk in cancer.
For more information about Omicron, please see recent studies that current COVID-19 vaccines cannot effectively prevent omicron infection, and results showing that Omicron can be neutralized by a booster dose.
The study is published in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (JNCCN) and was conducted by Eric M. Horwitz et al.
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