CHEKOV: CHEcKpoint Inhibitor effects On SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination

癌症患者的免疫系统受到疾病的影响，但也受到治疗副作用的影响。一类新的抗癌药物，免疫检查点抑制剂（ICI），与所有其他治疗方法非常不同，因为它们通过直接改变免疫系统来靶向癌症。这些药物现在被常规用于治疗各种癌症患者。它们还可能引起副作用，而SARS-CoV 2感染或疫苗接种可能会增强副作用。关于ICIs如何影响SARS-CoV-2疫苗接种，我们知之甚少。鉴于COVID-19可能在可预见的未来传播，了解目前的COVID-19疫苗对接受ICI的患者是否有效非常重要。为了解决这个问题，我们一直在收集在大流行期间感染的接受ICI治疗的黑色素瘤患者的血液样本。最近，我们在COVID-19疫苗接种活动期间从ICI治疗的黑色素瘤患者和健康个体中收集了样本。我们现在希望测试这些样本，以了解ICI治疗的患者的疫苗接种是否与健康个体中观察到的免疫应答的强度和质量相同，或者是否需要不同的疫苗和/或不同的疫苗接种时间表来保护这些患者。我们还将检查接受ICI的患者接种疫苗或感染是否会增加这些药物引起的免疫驱动副作用的风险。

The immune system of cancer patients is affected by their disease but also from side effects of their treatment. A new class of anti-cancer drugs, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), are very different to all other treatments because they work by directly altering the immune system to target the cancer. These drugs are now used routinely to treat patients with various cancers. They can also cause side effects that could be enhanced by SARS-CoV2 infection or vaccination. There is very little known about how ICIs impact vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. Given that COVID-19 is likely to circulate for the foreseeable future, it is important to know if current COVID-19 vaccines are effective in patients receiving ICIs. To address this question, we have been collecting blood samples from melanoma patients being treated with ICIs that were infected during the pandemic. More recently we collected samples from ICI-treated melanoma patients and healthy individuals during the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. We now wish to test these samples to see if vaccination of ICI-treated patients illicits the same magnitude and quality of immune response as observed in healthy individuals, or if different vaccines and/or different vaccine scheduling may be required to protect these patients. We will also examine if vaccination or infection of patients receiving ICIs could increase the risk of developing the immune-driven side effects that can be caused by these drugs.