Covid-19 Vaccine Could Extend Survival of Brain Cancer Patients

A recent study has found that patients diagnosed with glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer, can have extended survival durations if they receive an mRNA Covid-19 shot not more than 100 days before they undergo surgery to remove the tumor.

According to the study, patients who got the Covid-19 shot within that timeline prior to undergoing surgery or biopsy were observed to have twice the survival time of patients who didn’t get the shot prior to their biopsy or surgery to remove the glioblastoma tumor. The researchers investigated different vaccines and only found that this beneficial effect was triggered by the Covid-19 shot.

The researchers emphasize that their findings don’t present a cause-and-effect relationship; rather, the results suggest an association between the vaccine and extended survival of glioblastoma patients.

The team, based at the University of Alabama, was led by neurosurgeon James Markert. He explains that the vaccine could, in some way, be boosting the immune system’s ability to fight cancer.

This study adds to mounting evidence suggesting that vaccines can prolong survival times for cancer patients. In 2025, pediatric oncologist Elias Sayour conducted a study that found that melanoma or lung cancer patients that received a Covid-19 shot a few months prior to undergoing immunotherapy tended to nearly double the survival time of patients that didn’t get the vaccine.

The study conducted by Markert examined data on 187 patients with GBM. They found that the patients who were vaccinated prior to surgery or biopsy had an average survival time of at least 743 days while those who never got vaccinated survived for an average of 349 days. For a disease without meaningful treatment options, surviving for an extra year (for the vaccinated group) means a lot to the patient, caregivers and family members.

The study conducted by Markert and the one undertaken by Sayour found that this beneficial effect was only triggered by mRNA vaccines indicated for Covid-19. Non-mRNA Covid-19 vaccines didn’t trigger a similar effect.

The researchers posit that the mRNA vaccines may be helping GBM patients by training the immune system to recognize a cancer protein and attack it more aggressively. This thinking is supported by the observation that mRNA vaccines train the immune system to recognize Covid-19 virus protein fragments, and it was found that glioblastoma tumors have a protein whose shape is similar to that of the Covid-19 virus.

This could explain why mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 have been observed to extend survival in GBM, melanoma and lung cancer patients.

For now, the scientific community is desperate for any intervention that can benefit glioblastoma patients since the disease has defied all existing treatments, and they welcome the findings of this study. Hopefully, the R&D efforts of entities like CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) could yield a breakthrough that transforms glioblastoma treatment in the foreseeable future.

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