Boosting the influenza vaccine schedule in children with cancer: a prospective open-label study

Current immunization guidelines recommend one dose of influenza vaccine for children aged ≥9 years and two doses for younger or vaccine-naïve children. However, children receiving chemotherapy have an attenuated immune response. We performed a prospective open-label study in children undergoing treatment for cancer at Perth Children's Hospital, Western Australia, to examine the safety and efficacy of a boosted influenza schedule. This comprised three vaccine doses for children <9 years of age and two doses for those ≥9 years, with each dose administered at least 4 weeks apart. The additional vaccine dose was well-tolerated with no serious adverse events reported; it also resulted in improved geometric mean antibody titres for A/H1N1 (70 to 97, p = 0.003), A/H3N2 (76 to 104, p = 0.003) and B/Washington (148 to 179, p = 0.03) strains. In summary, a boosted influenza vaccine schedule is safe and improves humoral immune response, providing a readily implementable strategy to protect children undergoing treatment for cancer.

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Publication Details

Journal
npj Vaccines
Published
2025-08-26
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41541-025-01256-0
Primary Topic
Influenza Virus Research Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Boosting the influenza vaccine schedule in children with cancer: a prospective open-label study

E. McKinnon, Joyce Oommen, Rishi S. Kotecha, Laurence C. Cheung et al.
npj Vaccines
Influenza Virus Research Studies
article

Boosting the influenza vaccine schedule in children with cancer: a prospective open-label study

E. McKinnon, Joyce Oommen, Rishi S. Kotecha, Laurence C. Cheung, Nicholas G. Gottardo, Annette Fox, Andrew P McLean‐Tooke, Eliska Furlong, Louise Carolan, Daniel K. Yeoh, Sung Kai Chiu, Stephany Sánchez Ovando
article en

Abstract

Current immunization guidelines recommend one dose of influenza vaccine for children aged ≥9 years and two doses for younger or vaccine-naïve children. However, children receiving chemotherapy have an attenuated immune response. We performed a prospective open-label study in children undergoing treatment for cancer at Perth Children's Hospital, Western Australia, to examine the safety and efficacy of a boosted influenza schedule. This comprised three vaccine doses for children <9 years of age and two doses for those ≥9 years, with each dose administered at least 4 weeks apart. The additional vaccine dose was well-tolerated with no serious adverse events reported; it also resulted in improved geometric mean antibody titres for A/H1N1 (70 to 97, p = 0.003), A/H3N2 (76 to 104, p = 0.003) and B/Washington (148 to 179, p = 0.03) strains. In summary, a boosted influenza vaccine schedule is safe and improves humoral immune response, providing a readily implementable strategy to protect children undergoing treatment for cancer.

npj VaccinesVol. 10(1)
The Royal Melbourne Hospital (AU), The University of Melbourne (AU), The Kids Research Institute Australia (AU), The University of Western Australia (AU), Curtin University (AU), Princess Margaret Hospital for Children (AU), Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital (AU), Peter Doherty Institute (AU), Perth Children's Hospital
Australian Government, Government of Western Australia
Openalex Percentile: Top 69%
Influenza Virus Research Studies
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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