We are talking to 3 million and 609 thousand people, according to the latest data from the Istituto Superiore di Sanità: they are the Italians who, today, live with a diagnosis of cancer. One Italian in 17. And we are talking to them about vaccines against Covid-19.
With the suggestions that come to us from an international research, just published in the magazine Nature Review, signed, among others, by Giuseppe Curigliano, director of the new drug development division for innovative therapies at the European Institute of Oncology (Ieo) from Milan,
«Cancer patients are not all the same – Curigliano specifies -. There are those cured, those on maintenance therapy to prevent the disease from returning, and those who still have an active tumor, have metastases and are being treated with chemotherapy or other new drugs. And then there are those who participate in clinical trials, which aim to understand how new cancer therapies work ». In other words: there are patients “more fragile” than others and more at risk of contracting the coronavirus, of experiencing severe forms of disease and dying more. We repeat. They are: patients with still active tumors and with metastases; patients being treated with oncological drugs who have depressed immune defenses; those who, in the previous six months, had suspended their therapies. And those who participate in clinical trials, because they are sick. All with a disease not yet perfectly under control.
Here because they are the privileged “candidates” for vaccination, as requested by various scientific societies, including Foce, the Federation of Oncologists, Cardiologists and Hematologists, with a document also sent to the government.
And this is why, for example, certain people, after successfully treated breast cancer and on hormone therapy for the prevention of recurrence, are not priority candidates for the vaccine. However, they are considered cured and do not have priority access to the vaccine.
But there is another point under discussion. There is a better vaccine than another (among those currently available) for cancer patients considered “fragile”?
The answer is in the work signed by Curigliano. “In the clinical studies conducted to evaluate the efficacy of vaccines, few cancer patients were involved. Thus it was not possible to fully verify the efficacy of vaccination on these patients – explains Curigliano -. For now, in the immunization of these people, we proceed with the general criteria that refer to age “.
Curigliano works at the Ieo in Milan, an institute of excellence in Italy for the treatment of cancer. One question is a must: by what criteria are your patients summoned for vaccines?
«We have summoned our patients – explains Curigliano – according to the vaccination priorities. Someone expressed some hesitation, but in general there was a good adhesion ». And there was also support from those involved in clinical trials on new drugs, the main object of Curigliano’s work on Nature. Those that will lead us to find new treatments for cancer.
April 15, 2021 (change April 15, 2021 | 23:13)
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