PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Luana Guimaraes de Sousa
AU  - Daniel J McGrail
AU  - Kaiyi Li
AU  - Mario L Marques-Piubelli
AU  - Cipriano Gonzalez
AU  - Hui Dai
AU  - Sammy Ferri-Borgogno
AU  - Myrna Godoy
AU  - Jared Burks
AU  - Shiaw-Yih Lin
AU  - Diana Bell
AU  - Renata Ferrarotto
TI  - Spontaneous tumor regression following COVID-19 vaccination
AID  - 10.1136/jitc-2021-004371
DP  - 2022 Mar 01
TA  - Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer
PG  - e004371
VI  - 10
IP  - 3
4099  - http://jitc.bmj.com/content/10/3/e004371.short
4100  - http://jitc.bmj.com/content/10/3/e004371.full
SO  - J Immunother Cancer2022 Mar 01; 10
AB  - Vaccination against COVID-19 is critical for immuno-compromised individuals, including patients with cancer. Systemic reactogenicity, a manifestation of the innate immune response to vaccines, occurs in up to 69% of patients following vaccination with RNA-based COVID-19 vaccines. Tumor regression can occur following an intense immune-inflammatory response and novel strategies to treat cancer rely on manipulating the host immune system. Here, we report spontaneous regression of metastatic salivary gland myoepithelial carcinoma in a patient who experienced grade 3 systemic reactogenicity, following vaccination with the mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccine. Histological and immunophenotypic inspection of the postvaccination lung biopsy specimens showed a massive inflammatory infiltrate with scant embedded tumor clusters (<5%). Highly multiplexed imaging mass cytometry showed that the postvaccination lung metastasis samples had remarkable immune cell infiltration, including CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, natural killer cells, B cells, and dendritic cells, which contrasted with very low levels of these cells in the prevaccination primary tumor and lung metastasis samples. CT scans obtained 3, 6, and 9 months after the second vaccine dose demonstrated persistent tumor shrinkage (50%, 67%, and 73% reduction, respectively), suggesting that vaccination stimulated anticancer immunity. Insight: This case suggests that the mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccine stimulated anticancer immunity and tumor regression.