COVID-19 vaccine efficaccy in patients with hematologic malignancies

A study at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center found that patients with leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma alll had fewer antibodies at one and three months after CODID-19 vaccination than people without cancer. Peak antibody response was stronger in females than in males, and the Moderna vaccine elicited a stronger humoral response than the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Many patients had insufficiently neutralizing capacity following vaccination despite positive antibody titers. Therapies including venetoclax, kinase inhibitors, and B-cell antigen-targeting drugs hindered patients’ immune response to the vaccine, while single-agent immunomodulatory agents such as lenalidomide and pomalidomide for multiple myeloma did not.