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. 2023 Oct 30;11(11):1659.
doi: 10.3390/vaccines11111659.

COVID-19 Antibody Seroconversion in Cancer Patients: Impact of Therapy Cessation-A Single-Center Study

Lina Souan  1 , Hikmat Abdel-Razeq  2   3 , Sura Nashwan  1 , Sara Al Badr  1 , Kamal Alrabi  2 , Maher A Sughayer  1
Affiliations

COVID-19 Antibody Seroconversion in Cancer Patients: Impact of Therapy Cessation-A Single-Center Study

Lina Souan et al. Vaccines (Basel). .

Abstract

Background: The effective development of COVID-19 vaccination has mitigated its harm. Using two laboratory methods, we investigated the efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA and BBIBP-CorV COVID-19 vaccines on seroconversion rates in cancer patients undergoing active cancer treatment.

Methods: SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were scheduled for 134 individuals. The consenting participants submitted three venous blood samples. Three samples: T0, T1, and T2. The ABBOTT-SARS-CoV-2 IgG II Quant and Elecsys® Anti-SARS-CoV-2 assays were used to evaluate the samples and convert the antibody titers to WHO (BAU)/mL units.

Results: Cancer patients exhibited a higher seroconversion rate at T2, regardless of vaccination type, and the mean antibody titers at T1 and T2 were higher than those at T0. BBIBP-CorV patients required a booster because BNT162b2 showed a higher seroconversion rate between T0 and T1. Statistics indicate that comparing Abbott and Roche quantitative antibody results without considering the sample collection time is inaccurate.

Conclusions: COVID-19 vaccines can still induce a humoral immune response in patients undergoing cancer-targeted therapy. The strength of this study is the long-term monitoring of antibody levels after vaccination in cancer patients on active therapy using two different immunoassays. Further multicenter studies with a larger number of patients are required to validate these findings.

Keywords: BBIBP-CorV-virus; COVID-19; IgG antibody titer; Pfizer BioNTech (BNT162b2); SARS-CoV-2; active cancer therapy; cancer patients; inactivated vaccine; mRNA vaccine.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that this research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic overview of the study design.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean antibody titer of SARS-CoV-2 in cancer patients (BAU/mL).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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