We take this opportunity to respond to Dr. Rujittika Mungmunpuntipantip. We clearly showed that patients with lung cancer have fewer antibodies after vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 but did not show whether this affects the actual infection rate or severity [1]. Firstly, the amount of antibody titer required to prevent symptomatic COVID-19 is unclear. Therefore, it is possible that antibody levels in patients with cancer function sufficiently to prevent symptomatic COVID-19 even when the patients are infected with SARS-CoV-2 because of lower antibody titers.
Secondly, as we mentioned in this article [1], we recognize the limitation of our study wherein the number of participants is small and the patients are from only one institution, focusing on a Japanese population. Our results are in line with other reports [[2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]], but we agree that further study, including a variety of factors, is needed in the near future.
Conflict of Interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest.
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