Stem cell transplant recipients with cancers like leukemia had an antibody response rate of 83% to the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, with almost two-thirds having very strong responses, an observational, single-center study today in JAMA Network Open finds.Researchers from Nantes University Hospital in France studied 117 coronavirus-naïve adults who received a donor stem cell transplant for the treatment of hematologic cancer and were given two doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from Jan 20 to Apr 17.
The median interval between the two doses was 22 days.The study expands on a report by the same team in eJHaem on Jun 1 showing an antibody response to one vaccine dose of 55% in 112 stem cell transplant