PATIENTS with blood cancer have a lower antibody response to first doses of Covid-19 vaccines, according to Oxford researchers.

While this is expected to improve with the second dose, this important finding may help influence the design of future vaccination strategies, with further work needed to determine the optimal interval between doses in certain groups.

The team from the University of Oxford’s molecular haematology unit studied 60 people with chronic myeloid blood cancers under the care of the Myeloid Team at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford.

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Their antibody levels were measured after they received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Most patients developed antibodies in response to the vaccination, and the Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines were found to be equally effective.

Dr Onima Chowdhury, consultant haematologist and one of the lead authors of the study, explained the magnitude of the latest findings: "We found that the proportion of patients with a detectable antibody response two weeks after the first vaccine dose was significantly lower in the patient group than in healthy controls of similar age to the patients.

"Around 60 per cent of patients had a positive antibody test after the first dose, compared to 95 per cent of the healthy controls.

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"This difference was particularly marked in patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms who were receiving certain treatments, while other subgroups such as patients treated with interferon or those with chronic myeloid leukaemia responded almost as well as the controls."

The pandemic has had a severe impact on patients with blood cancers, and the roll-out of the vaccines has been hugely important to allow vulnerable people to come out from shielding.

However, Dr Beth Psaila at Cancer Research UK, pointed out that it is important that researchers carefully analyse the responses to ensure that patients who are vulnerable to severe infection are optimally protected as patients with cancer were not included in the initial vaccine trials.

Dr Psaila added: "This study showed that in certain patient groups, responses to the first vaccine dose were disappointing.

"However, we are continuing to study responses to the second 'booster' dose and are now working collaboratively with other UK centres as part of a taskforce coordinated by Blood Cancer UK to shed more light on these findings in larger cohorts of patients, and to carefully study the impact of certain treatments on immunity in patients with myeloid blood cancers."