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. 2023 Jan 23;41(4):871-874.
doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.12.042. Epub 2022 Dec 21.

One-year dynamics of antibody titers after three doses of SARS-CoV-2 BNT162b2 vaccine

Ori Wand  1 , Anna Breslavsky  2 , Amir Bar-Shai  3 , Chezy Levy  4 , Shlomo Maayan  5 , Avi Rimler  6 , Moatasem Zwahra  6 , Keren Cohen-Hagai  7 , Alma Harish  8 , Nadav Zacks  9 , Natalya Bilenko  10
Affiliations

One-year dynamics of antibody titers after three doses of SARS-CoV-2 BNT162b2 vaccine

Ori Wand et al. Vaccine. .

Abstract

Background: A third dose of the BNT162b2 SARS-CoV-2 vaccine leads to a significant increase in antibody levels, however, concerns regarding the long-term persistence of this response exist. We assessed the humoral response for one year following vaccination.

Methods: A prospective study among immunocompetent healthcare workers (HCW) who received three doses of BNT162b2. anti-spike antibody titers were measured at six predefined timepoints, from before the second vaccine dose, and up to one year afterwards, which is 4-6 months after the third dose. HCW with a history of SARS-CoV-2 infection were excluded.

Results: Seventy-six HCW had all the six serological measurements. Antibody titers significantly increased shortly following the third vaccine dose, and while declining, remained higher from all previous measurements for up to six months.

Conclusions: A third dose of BNT162b2 leads to a profound humoral response, which remains significantly higher than previous measurements, even after 6 months.

Keywords: COVID-19; Humoral response; Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine; SARS-CoV-2; Vaccination.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Study timeline First vaccine doses were administered to HCW in December 2020. Second doses were administered 21-days later, in January 2021, and the third doses during August 2021. IgG anti-S measurements began 0–5 days prior to the second dose (time 1), and then one month (time 2), three months (time 3), six months (time 4), nine months (time 5), and 12 months (time 6) after the second dose. Measurements of Quant anti-S were done at time points 5 and 6, after we identified very high IgG anti-S levels which were higher than the assay's upper limit following the third dose.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Study participants flow chart After exclusion of 5 HCW who were diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection and 19 HCW who denied further participation, the number of participants in the final analysis of the study was 76.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Dynamics of IgG anti-S levels geometric means over time Vertical bars correspond to 25–75 % percentiles and are crossed by the dashed line at the mean. Each circles represents a single individual measurement. Sera were diluted x20 since anti-S levels were over the assay's threshold of 400AU/ml for all participants in the 5th time point (after the third vaccine dose), and for some participants in the 6th time point. Antibody levels at the last, 6th, measurement were significantly higher than at measurements 1–4, p < 0.001. There was a significant difference in IgG anti-S levels between all consecutive measurements, p < 0.001.
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