Enhancement of Omicron-specific immune responses following bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccination in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.

Abstract

Cancer patients who are immune suppressed remain at increased risk from COVID-19 and have recently been prioritised for additional booster bivalent vaccines. Despite this, previous studies have shown that humoral and cellular immune responses often fail to reach levels comparable to the general population following booster doses. The emergence of the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has necessitated the deployment of modified bivalent mRNA vaccines that direct the synthesis of spike protein from Omicron in combination with ancestral spike. Bivalent booster vaccines have shown utility in general population studies [1,2,3] but there is little understanding of their relative immunogenicity in patients with immune suppression.