Immune system cells, produced in large numbers during COVID-19, can fight cancer cells. Medical journals describe patients who have experienced spontaneous remission of their tumors after undergoing infection, and scientists are investigating what the exact mechanism of this phenomenon is.
Cases of cancer remission after passing COVID-19
In the summer of 2020, doctors admitted a 61-year-old man to a hospital in Cornwall with a severe course of COVID-19. The man had been diagnosed with a blood cancer – Hodgkin’s lymphoma – not much earlier, but due to the SARS-CoV-2 virus infection, the patient was not started on treatment (chemotherapy was planned). The man was hospitalized for 11 days, during which he received oxygen. A CT scan, performed several weeks after COVID-19 passed, showed that there was no trace of the cancer. The case was reported in the British Journal of Hematology.
Another similar case was reported in Acta Biomedica. A 20-year-old with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was unsuccessfully treated in an Italian hospital with chemotherapy and radiation therapy. The cancer stopped recurring only when the patient underwent COVID-19 in the spring of 2020.
In the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, doctors from a Milan hospital described the cancer’s remission in a 61-year-old man who suffered from lymphoma. The article was published in February of this year.
T lymphocytes in the fight against cancer
According to Dr. Sarah Challoner, one of the specialists working at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, COVID-19 can trigger an anti-cancer immune response. During infection, the body produces large numbers of T lymphocytes, which identify not only the coronavirus in the body, but also cancer cells, destroying them.
What types of cancers respond to the body’s response after COVID-19?
Not all cancers respond to immune cells produced by the body after exposure to COVID-19. British researchers say that spontaneous remission is more likely in blood cancers (such as lymphoma) than in tumors (lung, breast or prostate cancer).
COVID-19 vaccine and cancer
Scientists wonder whether COVID-19 vaccines stimulate the immune system to fight cancer. A signal that such a mechanism may be taking place is provided by case reports of patients who experienced skin cancer remission after receiving the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine.
The information about cancer remission after undergoing COVID-19 is surprising, but doctors urge people to approach it with caution. As Paul Hunter, a professor at the University of East Anglia, points out, deliberate exposure to COVID-19 can lead to premature death instead of a cure.
Dodaj komentarz