Rare SARS-CoV-2 antibody development in cancer patients
Cardiff University review
First Author: Louisa Hempel
Journal/preprint name: research square
DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-71560/v1
Tags: SARS-CoV-2 antibody, cancer
Summary
The authors examined 77 oncological patients (median age of 66 years) who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-qPRC for the development of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. They suggest that only 6/77 patients showed measurable antibody levels. No correlation was detected between different types of cancers or anti-tumour treatments and the development of antibodies.
Research Highlights
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6 out of 77 patients testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-qPRC developed antibodies detectable around 30 days after RT-qPCR
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Of these 6 patients 3 developed mild symptoms, 2 experienced severe disease and 1 developed pneumonia
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Patients who were negative for antibodies at the first test did also not develop antibodies at later timepoints
Impact for COVID-19 research:
Low for clinical application
High for the general public as a lack of antibody development means no protection after primary infection with SARS-CoV-2
High for vaccine development, understanding why SARS-CoV-2 does not trigger antibody responses in some people will be important
Methodologies:
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Cohort study
Key Techniques: testing for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies: Roche (Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 immunoassay)
Limitations:
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It is unclear from the paper whether antibodies detected in the 6 patients would be protective against reinfection
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It would be interesting to know whether the 71 patients that did not develop antibodies were asymptomatic or experienced mild/severe disease
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One single test was used to detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies
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The cohort is very specific, cancer patients have previously reported to have a both lower and incidence of COVID-19 compared to the general population depending on the study