COVID-19 vaccine response in patients with impaired immune systems

A national study has found that a significant proportion of clinically at-risk patients with certain immunocompromised or immunosuppressed conditions, mount a low, or undetectable, immune response after two doses of the same COVID-19 vaccine. The ongoing multi-centre OCTAVE study is evaluating the immune responses following COVID-19 vaccination in patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases such as cancer, inflammatory arthritis, diseases of the kidney or liver, or patients who are having a stem cell transplant. Initial data from the study have been  published on the Lancet pre-print site. The study is led by the University of Glasgow and co-ordinated by the University of Birmingham's Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit. Researchers from Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) and the University of Oxford's Nuffield Department of Medicine are leading the research involving patients with gastrointestinal diseases. OCTAVE, one of the largest studies in the world into post-SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in immunocompromised patients, is funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and also involves groups in the University of Liverpool, Imperial College London and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, as well as researchers in Oxford, Glasgow and Birmingham. The study used a variety of state-of-the-art immune tests performed on blood samples taken before and/or after COVID-19 vaccination in around 600 people recruited across the UK.