Can a COVID vaccine cause a cancer (e.g., lymphoma) to be worse?

[Astronuc]

On September 22 of last year, Michel Goldman, a Belgian immunologist and one of Europe’s best-known champions of medical research, walked into a clinic near his house, rolled up his sleeve, and had a booster shot delivered to his arm. He knew he’d need it more than most.

Just a few weeks earlier, Michel, 67, had been to see his younger brother, Serge, the head of nuclear medicine at the hospital of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where both men are professors. Michel was having night sweats, and he could feel swollen lymph nodes in his neck, so his brother brought him in for a full-body CT scan. When the images came through to Serge’s computer they revealed a smattering of inky spots, bunched near Michel’s left armpit and running up along his neck. It was cancer of the immune system—lymphoma.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science...covid-vaccine-booster-lymphoma-cancer/671308/

Given his own area of expertise, Michel understood this meant he’d soon be immunocompromised by chemotherapy. With another winter on the way—and perhaps another wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections—that meant he had just a narrow window of opportunity in which his body would respond in full to COVID vaccination. Having received two doses of Pfizer the prior spring, Michel quickly went to get his third. If he was about to spend months absorbing poison as he tried to beat a deadly cancer, at least he’d have the most protection possible from the pandemic.

Within a few days, though, Michel was somehow feeling even worse. His night sweats got much more intense, and he found himself—quite out of character—taking afternoon naps. Most worryingly, his lymph nodes were even more swollen than before. . . . .

 

[Tom.G]

Apparently it does occur. Here are a couple of articles found on the National Institutes of Health site (NIH.GOV):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9377515/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8656165/

(above, and many more, found with:
https://www.google.com/search?&q=lymphoma+and+covid+vaccine+site:nih.gov)

 

[Laroxe]

I have just seen this and he does seem to be a credible source. While we already know that this virus has some "interesting" effects on our immune system, I suppose we still have to see this as a minority view, but he does cite some credible research.

 

[Astronuc]

My original post was from September 2022; I don't remember posting it, but it was apparently an interesting story.

Since then, the wife of a friend was diagnosed with lymphoma and started treatment, and she received Covid vaccines (Moderna in her case) like so many. A few months ago, it was determined that her lymphoma has changed to a more aggressive type! Coincidence, or causation? This one case is anecdotal, but may reflect something that was unanticipated.

How might this happen?

Edit/update: My wife found this article - Rapid progression of marginal zone B-cell lymphoma after COVID-19 vaccination (BNT162b2): A case report
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9377515/

 

[Laroxe]

I did have a scan through the current literature and this clearly is an interesting issue, there is no doubt that our immune system has a significant role in the way cancers can develop and the way our bodies respond to them. For decades there have been recorded cases in which various cancers have simply disappeared following viral infections, and we have been discovering a wide range of immune related issues in cancer management. It's well established that in certain cancers, immune suppression has a causal role and of course many of the treatments used in cancer also suppress the immune response. We now know that the development of cancer usually involves cellular mutations that allow the cancer to escape control by the immune system, and the recent advances in cancer treatment using biologic drugs often involve the manipulation of our immune response that increase the cancer cell's visibility to the immune system.

It does make sense that certain types of immune stimulation can have a direct effect on cancer and based on these ideas there was ongoing work on developing cancer vaccines prior to the appearance of Covid 19, with the use of mRNA technologies being a popular area of research. In fact, some of this work may have helped in the rapid development of the Covid vaccines, people were already familiar with the technology.

Covid has proven to be a difficult virus to predict, one of the reasons for this is the way in which the virus attacks the immune system and its predisposition to cause the development of various autoantibodies. As with other viral infections, there have already been anecdotal evidence of cancer regressing following infection, while at the same time there have also been reported cases of specific cancers of lymphatic tissue appearing following vaccination or of established lymphoma's unexpectedly relapsing.

Early experience of the safety issues involved with vaccination demonstrated how difficult it can be to establish links between the vaccination and certain health conditions that are rare and yet also occur in the general population. When there were reports of blood clots in one group of vaccines, for some time there was no clear difference from the background rate of these clotting disorders, we needed much more data before a clear picture of the problems became apparent. The same issue clouded understanding of the potential cardiac issues with the mRNA vaccines.

The possible link between the activation of lymphatic tumours has been flagged as a possible issue, and it does seem to be a theoretical possibility, infection is associated with a rapid increase in cell division in the lymphatic system. The problem is, that once again, if this rapid growth does increase the risk of malignant change, it is very rare, while the risks of Covid infection in someone with a lymphoma is much more obvious and dangerous. A variety of agencies around the world are monitoring this issue but currently none of these agencies have been able to confirm a link, there isn't sufficient evidence of an increase in the incidence of these cancers or in the relapse rate. I think we have to wait for an answer to this one.