[2021-04-16] MRI and COVID-19 vaccine

I received the results of my MRI today. It's normal, just like my mammogram. No sign of breast cancer. That's a relief.

I'm grateful that, despite our being in the worst wave of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, diagnostic testing has not been halted, as it was in the first wave. Just three weeks after learning of my faulty BRCA2 gene, I have up-to-date results from a mammogram and MRI.

Also today, I received confirmation from The Ottawa Hospital that, as a cancer patient, I am eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at the dose interval indicated on the product monograph. In other words, I should receive my second dose of the vaccine within four weeks of my first dose, once I get it.

A recent news story (Cancer patients could be at risk if second doses delayed beyond three weeks, experts say) indicated that the Canadian Association of Pharmacy in Oncology had called on the National Advisory Committee on Immunization to specify in its recommendations that cancer patients receive their second dose as per the original schedule--no later than three weeks after the first dose. This call is based on preliminary research out of the United Kingdom, which found that cancer patients did not have the same antibody response after one dose of the vaccine as people without cancer. The study found that, three weeks after a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, people with a solid cancer had an antibody response of 39% and people with a blood cancer had an antibody response of 13%, compared to healthy people, who had an antibody response of 97%.

Not only are cancer patients likely to have a different response to a COVID-19 vaccine, but they are also at greater risk if they get the disease. The article notes that "Cancer patients and other immunocompromised people are significantly more likely to experience severe outcomes or die if they contract COVID-19, making it more critical that they receive protection from the vaccine."

So, I'll wait for a call from The Ottawa Hospital to schedule me for a vaccine. In the meantime, I'll continue to stay close to home and let my husband do the grocery runs. He had his Pfizer-BioNTech jab on Wednesday.

I consider myself lucky to have received the level of healthcare I have in dealing with ovarian cancer during a pandemic. I have a lot to be thankful for.