Viral Immunity and Vaccines in Hematologic Malignancies: Implications for COVID-19

Abstract

Summary: Patients with hematologic malignancies have increased susceptibility to viral infections and suboptimal immunologic responses to current vaccines due to both disease-associated and therapy-related immune dysfunction. These considerations may impact the efficacy of emerging COVID-19 vaccines in this patient population as well and warrant the need to systematically study natural and vaccine-induced virus-specific immunity in these patients.