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text丨xie chengsi, special writer of "cc intelligence bureau" of phoenix.com

editor丨bai jinna huang han

core summary:

1. on september 17, researchers such as adam grippin released the latest results saying that cancer patients vaccinated with the covid-19 mrna vaccine lived twice as long as those who did not. the covid-19 vaccine can improve the level of pd-l1 immunotherapy.

2. research by dr. grippin’s team believes that the new coronavirus vaccine activates the immune system of vaccinated patients, which may overturn the therapeutic principle of cancer vaccines. if the new coronavirus vaccine is combined with immunotherapy targeting pd-l1, it can initiate an anti-tumor immune response and increase the patient's long-term survival chances.

3. some scientists believe that mrna carriers can act as adjuvants to activate the innate immune system. wang yuge, a special expert from phoenix.com's "cc intelligence bureau" and a doctor of immunology from the united states, believes that the above research confirms this hypothesis to a certain extent. research that the covid-19 vaccine may improve the overall survival rate of tumor patients is very promising. in future animal experiments or clinical trials, the covid-19 mrna vaccine should be set up as a control.

could the covid-19 vaccine treat cancer?

in a new study conducted by adam grippin, md, and others, researchers analyzed data from more than 8,000 patients with various cancers and found that,among patients with non-small cell lung cancer and metastatic melanoma who received pd1 immunotherapy, those who received the covid-19 mrna vaccine lived twice as long as those who did not receive the vaccine.further research has found that the new coronavirus vaccine can improve the level of pd-l1 (an immune checkpoint drug, former us president carter was cured using a pd1 called keytruda) immunotherapy, and may reverse the treatment resistance of lung cancer.

this research was published at the 2024 european society of oncology annual meeting held on september 17.

in december 2020, pfizer and modona launched two new coronavirus mrna vaccines. it is understood that since 2021, more than 13 billion doses of covid-19 mrna vaccines have been administered around the world. dr. carrico won the 2023 nobel prize in physiology or medicine for his discovery of nucleoside base modifications, which enabled the development of effective mrna vaccines against covid-19. the original intention of this mrna vaccine, which became famous because of the new coronavirus, was just to develop an anti-cancer vaccine. the new coronavirus vaccine is a by-product of their research on cancer vaccines.

covid-19 vaccine could improve cancer patients' chances of survival

because preclinical studies have shown that mrna vaccines can stimulate pd-l1 expression in tumors, dr. grippin and colleagues have been studying whether the covid-19 mrna vaccine will increase pd-l1 expression in patients with lung cancer and melanoma for two consecutive years.

dr. grippin presented data on 2,358 patients with stage iii-iv lung cancer who underwent biopsies at md anderson cancer center between august 2019 and august 2023.

researchers found that 33% of patients who received the covid-19 mrna vaccine 100 days before biopsy expressed pd-l1 (tumor cell positive expression rate) greater than 50%.

tumor cell positive expression rate (tps) is a common immunotherapy target. if tps ≥ 50%, it is pd-l1 positive, which means it is suitable for medication; conversely, if tps is 1 to 49%, it is pd-l1 negative and not suitable for medication.

many cancer patients lose treatment opportunities as a result.

dr. grippin noted that similar increases in pd-l1 tumor cell positivity were not observed with non-mrna vaccines, such as pneumonia and influenza vaccines.this suggests that only the mrna vaccine has this unique effect.

this study believes that the widespread "positive response" of the new crown vaccine to cancer patients shows that "the so-called personalization in cancer vaccine treatment" is an important factor, but "we believe that this is largely because mrna itself is a very a potent immune system activator."in other words, the new crown vaccine activates the immune system of the vaccinated patient. if true, this would overturn the therapeutic principles of so-called cancer vaccines.

to confirm their findings, dr. grippin and colleagues repeated this analysis on 5,524 pathology reports from md anderson cancer center, assessing pd-l1 expression in different cancer types. the researchers again found that patients who received the mrna covid-19 vaccine less than 100 days before biopsy had a significantly higher rate of positive tumors compared with patients who were not vaccinated or who were vaccinated more than 100 days before biopsy.

▎ the march 2022 issue of "vaccines" reported that a 72-year-old white woman experienced regression of multiple metastatic melanoma skin nodules after receiving the second dose of the sars-cov-2 mrna pfizer-biontech vaccine. the nodules shrank further after the third dose of vaccine. pathological tests concluded that the covid-19 vaccine may have induced the patient's immune system and produced a therapeutic effect.

the researchers next studied 214 patients with metastatic melanoma who underwent biopsies between august 2019 and august 2023 and found similar results.within 100 days of starting immunotherapy, vaccinated patients had higher overall survival rates than unvaccinated patients.

the conclusion of this study is: if the new coronavirus vaccine is combined with immunotherapy targeting pd-l1, it can initiate a powerful anti-tumor immune response that can be sustained and increase the chance of long-term survival. in fact, this study also shows thatpatients who were vaccinated against covid-19 lived twice as long as those who were not vaccinated.

while personalized mrna cancer vaccines won't be available anytime soon, these results are encouraging. this research brings a new possibility. today, personalized cancer vaccines cannot be applied quickly.“it is possible to obtain 50% to 80% of the benefits of these so-called personalized cancer vaccines using the new crown vaccine, which will greatly improve the survival rate of cancer patients.”！ "we are looking for a way to improve the response to life-saving treatments using a readily available, often free, therapy," said dr. grippin.

future studies should set up a new coronavirus mrna vaccine as a control

wang yuge, a special expert from phoenix.com's "cc intelligence bureau" and a doctor of immunology from the united states, believes that the new coronavirus vaccine may improve the overall survival rate of cancer patients. this research is very interesting and has great prospects. my previous job was to study the application of mrna vaccines in covid-19 and aids. in the past two years, there have been many studies and clinical trials on mrna vaccines as tumor therapeutic vaccine carriers. before the emergence of pd-1/pd-l1, tumor vaccines all ended in failure; then, pd-1/pd-l1 combined vaccines, especially mrna vaccines, seemed to have reversed the deadlock of tumor vaccines.

but what’s interesting is that in some reports i heard, many scientists believe that the signal of these mrna cancer vaccines is not the effect of the mrna cancer vaccine, but the effect of the mrna carrier itself.as an immunogen, the mrna carrier can activate the innate immune system and acts as an adjuvant.therefore, this latest study on the new coronavirus mrna vaccine improves tumor survival rate and upregulates pd-l1 expression in tumor cells.this hypothesis may be confirmed to a certain extent.

i think the new coronavirus mrna vaccine should be set up as a control in animal experiments or clinical trials in the future.