We have delivered the largest analysis of risk to cancer patients in the world and published it in Lancet Oncology – Lennard Lee
None of this would be possible without the incredibly talented people (below) who worked very hard to deliver this pandemic cancer response project
This UKCCP project has shown:-
- COVID-19 vaccination is effective in the majority of people with cancer, despite many being immunocompromised due to their cancer and treatments
- Cancer patients show a more rapid waning of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness by 3-6 months compared to the general population
- Vaccine effectiveness is much lower in people with the blood cancers leukaemia or lymphoma, those with a recent cancer diagnosis and those who have received anti-cancer treatment within the last year
- COVID-19 vaccination boosters are incredibly important for cancer patients.
The programme continues to teach us so many lessons learnt.
- First, we can work together for bigger milestones. The ability to connect nearly 50 scientists across ~30 institutions is possible with the right project management and leadership.
- Second, talent comes in all guises and all flavours. It is important to nurture talent irrespective of background or occupation.
- Finally, cancer studies can be even better. We delivered this project in months and we can now report on this coronavirus intervention in all cancer groups. Post-coronavirus era studies should now be the normal.
What’s our next step? We plan to continue our work until we have confidence that the risk to cancer patients from the pandemic has been reduced.
Thank you to everyone who continues to work very hard on our initiative.