music festivals, graduations,

dental cleanings,

pretty much everything has gotten put on hold

during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That includes health care

stuff like preventative medical care has gotten pushed to the back seat

as the virus has taken the wheel.

So what have these delays

meant for overall health,

especially when it comes to something

like cancer?

For some context,

my partner at the time was diagnosed

with lymphoma in early 2019.

This is pre-pandemic.

We spent about six months

basically living in the hospital,

and after that experience, all I could think about during

the pandemic was how much harder

that all would have been if we'd had to go through it

during COVID-19,

especially at the beginning,

at the point of diagnosis. Because it was difficult enough

to get seen by a doctor in pre-pandemic times.

But regular checkups and cancer screenings

drastically dipped during the early months of the pandemic,

as health care systems contended with the virus

and folks wanted to avoid high

risk locations like hospitals.

-What oncologists

worry about is that these delays in screening

will cause more patients

to be diagnosed at later stages,

where treatment is more difficult

and complicated and potentially

takes more away from a patient's quality of life.

-And the area of

sharpest decline in cancer screenings

was for women from underserved

communities where COVID-19 already

has an outsized impact.

And that's on top of an existing information gap

that has always been there.

Like, many people don't actually know how often

they should be screened for things like breast and cervical cancer.

And this knowledge is even less

common in communities of color.

And that's really concerning.

-One of the reasons that mortality from cancer

has been declining in the United States is because we've been

continuously improving some of our cancer screenings.

The best example of this is in cervical cancer.

Once widespread pap smear screening

became available in the United States,

cervical cancer went from being one of the leading

causes of death in women

to a relatively rare disease.

Recent studies

show that some cancer screenings,

but not all and not in all places,

have bounced back to pre-pandemic levels. And catching any cancer

early is absolutely essential to ensure a better outcome for the patient.

But it's especially true in the time of COVID.

And especially true

for those who have a blood cancer like leukemia or lymphoma.

And this is because those diseases

actually don't have screening options like a mammogram

for breast cancer or a pap smear for cervical cancer.

You just have to go to the doctor

if something doesn't feel right.

Plus, these cancers

impact the white blood cells.

-The white blood cells fight

all pathogens, bacteria, funguses, viruses,

anything that can attack your body and make you sick.

When you are a patient with leukemia or lymphoma,

both the disease itself

and the treatment can impact

the number and function of those white blood cells.

-Recent research

has shown that those with blood cancer in particular,

are at much higher risk of longer and more severe COVID-19

illness than people with a kind of cancer

that presents with solid tumors.

-The B lymphocytes are the exact cells

that are able to produce the proteins

we call the antibodies in response to infection.

So patients who either the malignancy itself

involves those cells

or the treatment for the malignancy knocks down those cells

are less able to make the antibodies

both to primary infection

or when they get an immunization.

-So what does this mean for blood cancer patients

when it comes to getting the COVID-19 vaccine?

Luckily, researchers have been studying exactly this.

Several studies have found that even

in immunosuppressed cancer patients

an mRNA vaccine can produce

at least some antibody response, just not one

as strong as we'd see in someone with a healthy immune system.

In a study from The Leukemia

and Lymphoma Society of more than 1,400 blood cancer patients,

there were some who,

depending on their cancer type,

were less likely to produce antibodies

in response to a full mRNA vaccine course.

But this research has been extended to look at a small number

of those patients who went on to get a booster shot.

And there's good news here.

-We were able to show

that almost half

of these patients, albeit small numbers

who were seronegative, or didn't make the antibodies

before, half of them

got a boost and were able to make antibodies from a third shot.

-But at this already complex intersection

of cancer care and COVID immunization,

health inequalities across

class, race and ethnicity,

and gender need to be taken into consideration too.

Like who has access to cancer care,

who has access to the vaccine,

who is able to get their cancer

diagnosed and treated in time?

And how does social identity play a role in all of this?

-Women tend to have a different immune system than men.

There are different receptors

that are targeted by various

immuno-oncology agents,

which are newer ways of treating cancer.

These drugs have been very, very successful

in treating certain malignancies.

But because women have an overall stronger

immune system than men,

men get more of an advantage

from these drugs than women do.

And so we are still trying to understand

all these differences between the immune systems of men and women

and how they interact in cancer

care to lead to differences in outcomes.

-So like always, we need more research.

And the National Cancer Institute

is conducting a study of 2,000

cancer patients who have contracted COVID-19

and is following them over the course

of two years to monitor their COVID immunity

during their cancer treatment and recovery.

Another study will be looking

at how COVID-19 susceptibility and immunity changes

in cancer patients, depending on the stage of their disease.

And work like this is how the medical community is able

to give solid, science-backed

advice to cancer patients on how to navigate things

like the COVID-19 pandemic

and vaccination as safely as possible.

There's so much noise out there about what's healthy

and what's not, what you should do and what you shouldn't,

which makes it all the more essential and empowering

to have access to solid,

credible information.

-And I really, really believe

that clinical trials are the path forward

for helping keep cancer patients safe.

I really want to thank

the now almost 12,000 patients

who agreed to be part of this registry

because we could not have done this

without patients saying,

'I want to help myself, but I want to help other people.'

If you are someone you know is looking for support when dealing with

blood cancer, then check out The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

They provide patients with free

one-on-one support and opportunities to speak

with highly trained oncology professionals.

So to learn more about them,

check out the resources we've left in the description below.

Thank you all so much for

watching Seeker's Body Language.

If you have another topic like this you want us to cover in this series,

then let us know in the comments and I'll see you next time.