10/23/2025

Study Finds mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines Prolonged Cancer Patients' Lives

Lung and skin cancer patients' records showed they gained additional benefits

COVID-19 vaccines, credited with saving millions of lives during the pandemic, set off a powerful alarm that rallies the human immune system against cancer and nearly doubles the median survival length of patients, according to a new retrospective study by researchers at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Florida.

The study examined the records of more than 1,000 MD Anderson patients who had already started approved immunotherapy for advanced non-small-cell lung cancer and melanoma, a type of skin cancer, comparing those who received coronavirus mRNA vaccines with those who had not.

"This [initial] data is incredibly exciting, but it needs to be confirmed in a Phase III clinical trial," said Adam Grippin, lead author of the study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.