Covid vaccination boosts efficacy of nose-throat cavity cancer treatment

Cancer drugs worked better after patients had had Covid-19 jabs, scientists have discovered.

Patients with nasopharyngeal cancer – in the area from the back of the nose to the upper part of the throat – who had had a coronavirus vaccine “responded significantly better” to treatment than unvaccinated patients, according to German and Chinese experts.

Doctors looked at more than 1,500 patients in 23 hospitals across China, 373 of whom had received the Chinese Covid vaccine SinoVac.

They were surprised when the cancer drugs worked better in those who had had the jab, and concerns that the cancer therapy might interact unfavourably with Covid vaccination appeared unfounded.

Studies have found that the cavity between the nose and throat is the main reservoir of Covid-19, and people with cancer there are at greater risk of infection.

Nasopharyngeal cancer is quite rare in the UK, but widespread in southeast Asia.

The frequent use of air conditioning in hot, humid regions is thought to be a factor, but diet also plays a role.

According to the NHS, eating a lot of salt-cured meats and fish increases the risk of developing the disease.

In Taiwan, nasopharyngeal cancer is considered a leading cause of death among young men.

It is often treated with drugs that activate the immune system against the tumour, and until now, doctors feared that Covid vaccination could make cancer treatment less effective or cause severe side effects.

According to the study by the Universities of Bonn and Shanxi in China, published as a letter in the journal Annals of Oncology, vaccination against Covid stimulates the immune response, so the body can better fight tumours.

Cancer cells push “a kind of button” on immune cells, the PD-1 receptor.

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“It was feared that the vaccine would not be compatible with anti-PD-1 therapy,” says Jian Li of University Hospital Bonn. “This risk is especially true for nasopharyngeal cancer, which, like the SARS Cov-2 virus, affects the upper respiratory tract.”

Christian Kurts, director of Institute of Molecular Medicine and Experimental Immunology at the university, said: “Surprisingly, they responded significantly better to anti-PD-1 therapy than the unvaccinated patients.

“Furthermore, they did not experience severe side effects more often.”

The researchers cannot say why the treatment was more successful after vaccination but they suspect that vaccination activates certain immune cells.

The NHS says other risk factors for developing the disease include being of south Chinese or north African descent, coming into contact with the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a common virus that causes glandular fever and having a job where people regularly come into contact with hardwood dust or the chemical formaldehyde.

The success of mRNA vaccines during the coronavirus pandemic has encouraged scientists working with the technology in cancer.

These vaccines work by introducing a piece of mRNA that corresponds to a viral protein.

BioNTech has several trials in progress to find out whether the Covid vaccine could lead to new treatments for melanoma, bowel cancer and other tumour types.