Patients with benign breast disease and breast cancer need more COVID-19 vaccines

  1. Huai-liang Wu
  2. Zong-lin He
  3. Yue Gong
  4. Miao Mo
  5. Guang-yu Liu

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Abstract

Albeit the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines in immunocompromised patients is undermined, it is still found beneficial. Patients with cancer have a much lower COVID-19 vaccination rate globally, and the vaccination coverage in breast cancer patients in China remains elusive. A total of 23029 patients with benign breast diseases and breast cancers were included in the study, and the vaccination rates of patients with benign breast tumors and other benign breast diseases, nonmetastatic and metastatic breast cancer were 44.0%, 54.7%, 19.2% and 9.6%, respectively. Breast cancer in situ patients had a similar vaccination rate with patients with benign breast tumors (45.9% vs 44.0%) while those with invasive breast cancer had much lower vaccination rates. The overall vaccination rate remains meager in breast cancer patients, and gap was found in patients with lower clinical stage. Hence vaccination should be further promoted among patients with benign breast diseases and breast cancer.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.12.09.21267531: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analysis was performed with IBM SPSS 20.0 software.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    In this sense, vaccination in BC patients is recommended, consistent with the Chinese expert consensus on COVID-19 vaccination for BC patients, unless patients were receiving several adjuvant treatments such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy, targeted therapy.[9] This study has limitations, including its cross-sectional nature, reliance on self-reported data, and limited demographical data. Yet the study has enough data to shed light on the vaccination uptake in Chinese patients with benign breast diseases and breast cancer, suggesting a full-dose vaccination campaign for most of breast diseases patients (except for breast cancer during adjuvant treatment or in the advanced stage) tolerable for vaccination may protect them from unnecessary morbidity and mortality from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Since vaccination remains the leading strategy for preventing severe adverse outcomes. The active participation of oncologists is needed to further educate patients with breast diseases about the benefits and indications of COVID-19 vaccines, especially for those without vaccine-contraindication.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.12.09.21267531v2 on medRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.12.09.21267531v3 on medRxiv
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