Complaisance of COVID-19 vaccination in cancer patients: A North Indian Tertiary Cancer Center (TCC) annotation

 Because of waxing and waning nature of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), it has turned the entire globe upside down since its conception in December 2019. Vaccination against COVID-19 has emerged as the only ray of light in this dark tunnel of the pandemic, and has proven to curtail the morbidity and mortality associated with the viral infection. Thus, aspiration behind doing this study was to present the actual conformity of Indian cancer center patient population to COVID-19 vaccination.

The current prospective research was conducted on 396 cancer patients from North Indian Tertiary Cancer Center (TCC) between October 2021-February 2022 to analyze vaccine acceptance among its cancer patients. Face-to-face interviews were done to ask about the demographics and status of vaccination. Data was analyzed using SPSS v.25. Quantitative data presented as mean and standard deviation (SD). Qualitative data presented as ratios and percentages. Qualitative data were compared using Chi-square test. p<0.05 was considered significant.

Among 396 patients, 221 (55.80%) were male and 175 (44.19%) were female, and mean age of study population was 55.96 years. 292 (73.74%) were from rural background while 104 (26.26%) belonged to urban background. Most common site of malignancy was head and neck cancer with 40.66% patients. 245 (61.36%) out of 396 patients were vaccinated either with single or both doses of COVID-19 vaccine, but 153 (38.64%) were not vaccinated. Out of vaccinated patients, 70.37% patients were fully vaccinated with 2 doses and 29.63% were vaccinated with single dose of COVID-19 vaccination.

Hesitancy of cancer patients in receiving COVID-19 vaccination is still a big hurdle to return to pre-pandemic oncological care, and this can be mitigated by amalgamated active efforts of government, treating oncologist and family of cancer patients.