Despite More Vaccinations, Cancer Survivors More Likely to Have Long COVID

New research suggests that US cancer survivors are more likely than the general population to develop moderate to severe COVID-19 and long COVID.

This is despite the fact that cancer survivors are more likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and just as likely as the general population to be infected with SARS-CoV-2. These findings were published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

For this study, researchers evaluated data from the National Health Interview Survey in 2021 and 2022. The cohort from 2021 included 3428 cancer survivors and 26,023 control individuals without a cancer history. The cohort from 2022 included 3218 cancer survivors and 24,393 control individuals.

The cancer survivors were more likely than control individuals to have received 2 or more COVID-19 vaccines in 2021 (66.6% and 62.3%, respectively; P =.003) and 2022 (77.0% and 72.4%, respectively; P <.001).

However, cancer survivors were just as likely as control individuals to report having COVID-19 in 2021 (14.1% and 14.2%, respectively; P =.93) and 2022 (39.9% and 39.3%, respectively; P =.55).

Cancer survivors were more likely than control individuals to report moderate to severe COVID-19 symptoms in 2021 (62.5% and 54.2%, respectively; P =.02). In 2022, there was a trend toward more moderate and severe COVID-19 among cancer survivors, but the difference between cancer survivors and control individuals was not statistically significant (54.5% and 51.3%, respectively; P =.13).

However, the data from 2022 showed that cancer survivors were more likely than control individuals to have symptoms of long COVID (20.6% and 17.3%, respectively; P =.04). There were no data on long COVID from 2021.

“With the continuing high infectious rate and seasonal resurgences of COVID-19 infections and ongoing recommendations for vaccination, especially for vulnerable populations, monitoring the impact of COVID-19 infection and the effectiveness of prevention and control strategies continue to be a public health priority,” the researchers wrote. “Our findings suggest the need for tailored efforts to prevent and control COVID-19 infection for cancer survivors.”

This article originally appeared on Cancer Therapy Advisor