Just how risky is Covid-19 in people with cancer who’ve been vaccinated? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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People with cancer who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 remain at increased risk for infection compared with people who don’t have cancer, a very large new study reveals. Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center director William Nelson describes the findings.

Nelson: In the end they had 45,000 or more cancer patients who had been vaccinated. And what they tried to see was who got infected, when did they get infected, was there any difference between one cancer and another? Overall there were 13.6% of the cancer patients had a breakthrough infection. Twenty-four to 25% of the pancreatic cancer patients had a breakthrough infection, 22 to 23% of liver cancer, 20-21% of lung cancer, a little bit less breast cancer patients. Only about 4.9 to 5% of the people who didn’t have cancer got a breakthrough infection.  :33

Nelson emphasizes that getting vaccinated and being careful remain the best strategies against Covid-19 infection. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.