Extended survival observed in patients who received mRNA anti-Covid vaccines shortly after starting immunotherapy.
mRNA anti-Covid vaccines could have an unexpected beneficial effect for those fighting cancer. Patients with lung or skin cancer who received these vaccines within 100 days of starting immunotherapy lived significantly longer than those who did not receive them.
This was revealed by the preliminary analysis of over a thousand medical records carried out by scientists from the Universities of Florida and Texas, and presented on 19 October at the 2025 Congress of the European Society of Medical Oncology in Berlin.
Enhance the immune response to tumors
The news comes from a simple observation of data and will need to be confirmed in a randomized clinical trial (in which, that is, participants are randomly assigned to different treatment groups), which should begin at the end of the year. But if it were founded, it would have absolute relevance for cancer research: “Could we create a universal key in the form of an mRNA vaccine, which awakens the immune response in all cancer patients?” asks Elias Sayour, a scientist at the University of Florida among the authors of the new work.
mRNA vaccines and immunotherapies
The discovery is based on a study from Sayour’s laboratory a few months ago. By July 2025, researchers had observed an enhancement of the anti-tumor response by mRNA vaccines, when combined with drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitorstherapies that “unlock the brakes” on the immune system, allowing it to act against a tumor.
Vaccines similar to the anti-covid ones, but not directed at a specific target (such as a certain virus or a certain tumor protein) had awakened the immune system of mice against tumors, causing their T lymphocytes to migrate en masse towards the lymph nodes, where they had called upon other defenses to launch a targeted attack on the diseased cells. Does the same “superpower” – the researchers asked – apply to all mRNA vaccines, including anti-covid ones?
A longer lifespan
To answer, the authors of the new study analyzed data from more than a thousand patients with stage 3 or 4 non-small cell lung cancer and metastatic melanoma treated at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center between 2019 and 2023.
For lung cancer patients, receiving COVID-19 vaccines within 100 days before or just after starting immunotherapy drugs was associated with a nearly doubled median survival — from 20.6 months to 37.3 months. For those with melanoma, median survival lengthened from 26.7 months to 30-40 months.
Non-mRNA vaccines typically given to cancer patients, such as pneumonia or influenza, have not been linked to effects on life expectancy.
Studies on mice have confirmed that these vaccines could increase the responsiveness of tumors to treatments: “One of the mechanisms by which they could work is that, when an mRNA vaccine is administered, it acts like a wave that starts to move all these immune cells from areas where they are not good, such as the tumor, towards those where they are useful, such as the lymph nodes”, explains Sayour.
Vaccines that turbocharge therapies
The recruitment of the immune system against tumors also poses risks, therefore it would be premature, before controlled clinical trials, to recommend combining anti-covid vaccines with the start of immunotherapies. However, if the discovery were confirmed and extended to patients with other types of cancer, one could imagine a universal mRNA vaccine that works even better, and that allows those suffering from advanced stage tumors to gain more life.
