COVID-19 Vaccines Shouldn’t Be Delayed In Patients With Cancer, Despite Potential For Clinically Evident Adenopathy On Imaging Following Vaccination

Reuters Health (3/3, Rapaport) reports, “Patients with cancer shouldn’t delay COVID-19 vaccination despite the potential for clinically evident adenopathy on imaging done after vaccination, according to recommendations from a multidisciplinary panel of scientific experts.” According to recommendations published in Radiology, “vaccination-associated adenopathy or axillary swelling may appear within two to four days after either vaccine dose and last up to two days with the Moderna vaccine and up to 10 days with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.” This “finding may appear when using modalities including mammography, breast MRI, chest and neck CT, and whole-body PET,” and the recommendations say that “to allow time for swelling or adenopathy to resolve prior to imaging, routine cancer screening should be scheduled prior to COVID-19 vaccination or at least six weeks after the final dose.