Did COVID-19 Cure This Person's Cancer?

In January 2021, the British Journal of Haematology, a leading medical journal, reported a miraculous case of a terminal cancer patient whose tumor disappeared after being infected with SARS-CoV-2.

He was originally a kidney failure patient who was receiving hemodialysis treatment. In 2020, his lymph nodes swollen, and was admitted to the hospital and finally diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. This is a rare type of lymphoma, accounting for only 8% to 11% of all lymphomas, but has a high cure rate, with a 5-year survival rate of 75%. After the cancer diagnosis, the worse thing happened. He went for a nucleic acid test for COVID-19 because of breathing difficulties and the result was positive. He received supportive treatment in the hospital and after 11 days in the hospital, he went home to recuperate.

Four months later, a miracle happened! Doctors examined him and found that the tumor in his body was receding! The lymph nodes that could be felt were getting smaller; the PET-CT scan revealed that the lymph nodes in his body were also receding; the level of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) was decreasing (EBV infection is thought to be associated with lymphoma).

In this case, there are two possibilities for tumor regression after infection with the novel coronavirus.

The first is the amazing immune response.

After the coronavirus entered the body, the patient's immune system was activated to kill the virus and at the same time kill the tumor cells in the body. This is not the first time this phenomenon has been discovered. This method of mobilizing the autoimmune system to destroy tumors is known as immunotherapy and is now well established in clinical practice.

The second guess is that SARS-CoV-2 may be an oncolytic virus that can directly kill the tumor cells.

As we know, the virus cannot survive on its own; it must enter human cells after infecting the body and then produce offspring. This process can lead to cell rupture. If a virus infects the human body and enters tumor cells, thus killing them without affecting normal cells, it has an anti-tumor effect and is called an oncolytic virus. It is a popular direction in the field of tumor therapy.

The earliest reported case was in 1896, when a woman went into remission from leukemia after a suspected flu infection. But in the 1970s and 1980s, clinical trials of oncolytic viruses almost came to a halt due to many issues of safety, efficacy and regulation.

Finally, genetic engineering saved the technology by eliminating the pathogenicity of natural viruses, improving targeting ability, thus reducing the killing of normal cells and increasing the killing effect on tumor cells. In 2015, oncolytic virotherapy was approved in the United States to treat melanoma using the attenuated oncolytic herpes simplex virus.

Many people will wonder, after the coronavirus infection, the tumor in the body disappears, so can cancer patients deliberately infect and fight the tumor with the virus?

The answer is a big NO! Direct infection with a natural virus has a high probability that the tumor patient will suffer from infectious disease at the same time, or even die from the infection.

The greatest value of this case is for the reference of the research community, but it has no clinical significance and no value to be promoted for use in other patients. The need for cancer patients to be aware is even greater in the face of COVID-19. Numerous previous studies have shown that patients with diseases have a higher mortality rate when infected with SARS-CoV-2.

In research published on March 10, 2022, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute followed 515 patients with varying cancers, and managed to evaluate if patients had an immune response to the Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccine and if that response differed by diagnosis and treatment. The result shows that cancer patients do benefit from COVID-19 vaccination, and the rate of developing antibodies varies by cancer type and treatment.

National Cancer Institute suggested cancer patients who are about to undergo surgery should wait a few days to up to 2 weeks after surgery to get vaccinated. This helps doctors know whether any symptoms—for example, a fever—are due to the surgery or the vaccine. They also recommend that these patients wear masks when in public places and avoid large get-togethers and crowds. These efforts are important because if you get COVID-19 it may lead to delays in your cancer treatment.