COVID-19 Vaccine-Related Adverse Events in Solid Cancer Patients Treated with Immunotherapy

Abstract

Little data are available regarding the effects of COVID-19 vaccine in cancer patients undergoing immunotherapy. Thereby, COVID-19 vaccine-related adverse events were monitored through a short questionnaire in solid cancer patients receiving immunotherapy. A total of 95 patients were included in this study. Two doses of vaccines were administered to cancer patients which mainly received Pembrolizumab (51.1%). Respectively 78.2% and 62.2% of patients reported no adverse events after the first and the second dose regardless of the type of vaccine used. Considering the high mortality rate due to COVID-19 among cancer patients, this study demonstrated the good tolerance of COVID-19 vaccine.

Keywords:

• COVID-19 vaccines
• cancer
• immunotherapy
• adverse events

Acknowledgments

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.. Novartis was not involved in the design, production, analysis, and writing of this work.