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A common vaccine could help to fight cancer, a new study suggests.
For cancer patients undergoing immunotherapy, researchers found that receiving the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine within about 100 days of starting immune checkpoint therapy was associated with substantially better survival.
Researchers at the University of Florida and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center analyzed data from more than 1,000 cancer patients with Stage 3 and 4 non-small cell lung cancer and metastatic melanoma who were treated at MD Anderson from 2019 to 2023.
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All patients were treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors, a type of immunotherapy drugs that help the immune system recognize and attack tumor cells more effectively.
Some of the patients received an mRNA COVID vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy and some did not, according to a study press release.
The researchers found that those who received both the vaccine and the immunotherapy lived longer “by a significant amount.”
Those who received the vaccine had nearly twice the average survival — 37.3 months compared to 20.6 months.
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The greatest survival benefit was seen in patients with immunologically “cold” tumors — those that are typically resistant to immunotherapy. Among those patients, the addition of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine was linked to a nearly five-fold increase in three-year overall survival.
“At the time the data were collected, some patients were still alive, meaning the vaccine effect could be even stronger,” the release stated.
The researchers then replicated this outcome in mouse models — when the mice received a combination of immunotherapy drugs and an mRNA vaccine targeting the COVID-19 spike protein, their tumors became more responsive to treatment.
“This is the type of treatment benefit that we strive for and hope to see with therapeutic interventions.”
Non-mRNA vaccines for flu and pneumonia did not have those same effects, the study found.
The findings were presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2025 Congress in Berlin on Oct. 19 and were published in the journal Nature.
“The implications are extraordinary — this could revolutionize the entire field of oncologic care,” said senior researcher Elias Sayour, M.D., Ph.D., a UF Health pediatric oncologist and the Stop Children’s Cancer/Bonnie R. Freeman Professor for Pediatric Oncology Research.
As this was an observational study, the researchers noted that a prospective and randomized clinical trial is needed to confirm the findings.
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“Although not yet proven to be causal, this is the type of treatment benefit that we strive for and hope to see with therapeutic interventions — but rarely do,” said Duane Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D., director of the UF Clinical and Translational Science Institute.
“I think the urgency and importance of doing the confirmatory work can’t be overstated.”
The researchers are now planning to launch a large clinical trial through the UF-led OneFlorida+ Clinical Research Network, a consortium of hospitals, health centers and clinics in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, California and Minnesota, the release stated.
In the future, the researchers suggested that a “universal, off-the-shelf” vaccine could be developed to boost cancer patients’ immune response and survival.
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“If this can double what we’re achieving currently, or even incrementally — 5%, 10% — that means a lot to those patients, especially if this can be leveraged across different cancers for different patients,” Sayour added.
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The study was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute, the Food and Drug Administration, the American Brain Tumor Association, and the Radiological Society of North America, among others.
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