Sinovac vaccine is beneficial for cancer treatment
Nasopharyngeal (upper pharyngeal) cancer is usually treated with the anti-PD-1 technique, which blocks PD-1 receptors on the surface of immune cells. There were similarities between the drugs, as the Covid-19 vaccines and many cancer cells also used the same cells. Thus, it was unclear and risky how Covid-19 vaccines would interact with such cancer treatments.
“We hypothesize that vaccination activates certain immune cells that attack the tumor. We will now explore this hypothesis further,” says Qi Mei, a cancer researcher at Shanxi University Hospital in China.
Scientists can use drugs to block PD-1 receptors in the treatment of this type of cancer, thereby stimulating the immune system to fight tumor cells. The team participating in the study states that more work needs to be done in this area.