*President of the Together Against Cancer Foundation and of the Federation of Oncologists, Cardiologists, Hematologists (FOCE)
WE KNOW that patients with immunosuppression such as cancer patients have a higher risk of Covid infection than the general population, due to the characteristics of the disease itself or of the treatment. Two studies have shown this, one Italian and another conducted at European level. We also know that these patients have a higher risk of mortality from Covid: data produced before the start of the anti-Covid vaccination showed that short-term mortality due to serious complications was as much as 30% in the early stages of the pandemic and that it was still very high at the end of 2020, albeit halved (around 15%) due to an earlier diagnosis of the infection, an improvement in the treatment and management of these patients.
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The turning point of vaccines
But the real turning point, both in the transmission of the infection, and in the incidence of serious complications such as interstitial bronchopneumonia and deaths, was the launch of the vaccination campaign. Following the pressing request of FOCE to the Government Authorities for the early start of vaccination in all fragile Italian patients, at the Regina Elena National Cancer Institute in Rome we had the opportunity to start, first in our country, precisely the 1st March 2021, the vaccination of patients with oncological disease currently undergoing active treatment, or already treated in the previous semester. In the first three weeks, from 1 to 20 March, we thus vaccinated 816 cancer patients with the Pfizer vaccine. We immediately observed in a very high percentage of these patients a rapid growth of anti-spike antibodies, both after the first and, above all, after the second dose, which was instrumental in achieving the maximum antibody response.
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The effect of the booster dose on serious infections and complications
Patients receiving chemotherapy or chronic steroid doses experienced a lower response. These patients were then followed up periodically and, from the moment of the onset of the decline in antibody response, i.e. 4-6 months after completion of the first two vaccine doses, underwent the additional dose that resulted in almost all patients. an immediate rise in antibody titers much higher than that obtained even after the second dose. But what is surprising is that, during all this time period and the months immediately following, in 1,243 patients followed up to December 2021 with systematic molecular swabs (even in the absence of symptoms), only 14 patients (1%) tested positive. Of these, 11 were completely asymptomatic and 3 symptomatic, of which only one with interstitial pneumonia, which quickly resolved with medical treatment. The mortality from Covid in these patients was therefore equal to zero compared to the very high percentages observed in the European study carried out in the pre-vaccination period. Furthermore, the side effects secondary to the vaccine after the total administration of 2,661 were always mild, while those of moderate entity (high fever, intense headache or arthralgia and myalgia) occurred overall in only about 2% of patients. In only one case out of 2,661 administrations there was a tongue edema associated with dyspnoea two hours after the administration of the vaccine, followed by a complete spontaneous resolution of the clinical picture within a few minutes.
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Against fake news: data and lives saved
All these data, already produced in 7 scientific papers published in international journals with a high impact value, confirm that having vaccinated these patients early has allowed them to be safe from the lethal events that the Covid infection, previously and in the absence of vaccine, had been shown to be able to produce in our most fragile patients. The effect of the vaccines was therefore strongly positive and this makes the various theories that are produced and spread daily on the media about the ineffectiveness and toxicity of vaccines truly inconceivable and irresponsible. We have saved many human lives who have thus been able to continue their treatment and, in part, survive the disease or even recover from it.
Image credits: Nick Fewings on Unsplash