Medical Express Severe COVID-19 and influenza infections prime the lungs for cancer and can accelerate the disease’s development, but vaccination heads off those harmful effects, new research from UVA Health’s Beirne B. Carter Center for Immunology Research and UVA Comprehensive Cancer Center indicates. UVA School of Medicine researcher Jie Sun, Ph.D., and colleagues found that serious viral infections “reprogrammed” immune cells in the lungs to facilitate the growth of cancer tumors months or even years later.
Based on their findings, published in the journal Cell, the scientists are urging doctors to closely monitor patients who have recovered from severe COVID, flu or pneumonia in hopes of catching lung cancer early, when it is most treatable.