COVID-19 Infection despite Previous Vaccination in Cancer Patients and Healthcare Workers: Results from a French Prospective Multicenter Cohort (PAPESCO-19)

• Published in: Cancers Vol. 15; no. 19; p. 4777
• Main Authors: Seegers, Valérie, Rousseau, Guillaume, Zhou, Ke, Blanc-Lapierre, Audrey, Bigot, Frédéric, Mahammedi, Hakim, Lambert, Aurélien, Moreau-Bachelard, Camille, Campone, Mario, Conroy, Thierry, Penault-Llorca, Frédérique, Bellanger, Martine M., Raoul, Jean-Luc
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 28.09.2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Antibodies; Blood diseases; Breast cancer; Cancer; Cancer therapies; Care and treatment; Chemotherapy; COVID-19; COVID-19 vaccines; Development and progression; Health aspects; Health care; Immunization; Immunotherapy; Infection; Infections; Kinases; Life Sciences; Medical personnel; Radiation therapy; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Vaccination; France; Breakthrough infections; COVID-19 vaccine; Cancer patients; Healthcare workers; France
• ISSN: 2072-6694; 2072-6694
• DOI: 10.3390/cancers15194777

In a multicenter prospective cohort of cancer patients (CP; n = 840) and healthcare workers (HCWs; n = 935) vaccinated against COVID-19, we noticed the following: i/after vaccination, 4.4% of HCWs and 5.8% of CP were infected; ii/no characteristic was associated with post-vaccine COVID-19 infections among HCWs; iii/CP who developed infections were younger, more frequently women (NS), more frequently had gastrointestinal, gynecological, or breast cancer and a localized cancer stage; iv/CP vaccinated while receiving chemotherapy or targeted therapy had (NS) more breakthrough infections after vaccination than those vaccinated after these treatments; the opposite was noted with radiotherapy, immunotherapy, or hormonotherapy; v/most COVID-19 infections occurred either during the Alpha wave (11/41 HCW, 20/49 CP), early after the first vaccination campaign started, or during the Omicron wave (21/41 HCW, 20/49 CP), more than 3 months after the second dose; vi/risk of infection was not associated with values of antibody titers; vii/the outcome of these COVID-19 infections after vaccination was not severe in all cases. To conclude, around 5% of our CPs or HCWs developed a COVID-19 infection despite previous vaccination. The outcome of these infections was not severe.