LRF Webinar on Covid-19 Vaccinations for Lymphoma Patients

The Lymphoma Research Foundation has been doing a great job with webinars lately. As I wrote a few weeks ago, the LRF did a webinar on Follicular Lymphoma on August 3. The webinar gave some basic information on FL and an update on treatments, focusing on some of the more recently approved ones.

If you didn't get to listen in on August 3, you can watch (or listen to) a recording of the webinar on YouTube. Click here to access it. (I was hoping there would be a transcript available somewhere to make translation easier, but I can't find one anywhere.) It's a little over one hour long.

The first part of the webinar didn't offer a lot of really new info, especially if you keep up with the world of FL. This wasn't surprising.

The question and answer part of the presentation is usually where there things get interesting. In my professional life, I sometimes go to presentations that have a question-and-answer. Some questions are really specific and don't mean much to anyone other than the person who asked it. But sometimes someone asks a question that really brings up an issue that gives some new information or a new perspective on things.

The questions come about 45 minutes into the webinar. They include things like "Are there any studies that show how diet can affect FL outcomes?" (Answer: No, there haven't been any studies, but eat a healthy diet to stay healthy in general). 

Another: "I had radiation. Am I immunocompromised?" (Answer: Being in remission after radiation is probably the least immunocompromised among FL patients, but any lymphoma patient is probably immunocompromised in some way, so we should all be extra careful.)

And another: "Will an antibody test tell me if the Covid vaccine worked?" (Answer: The antibody tests just aren't accurate enough to tell us your status. Be careful. And if a booster becomes available, talk to your doctor about it.)

A reader named Cricket left a comment on my post about this webinar: "Would be helpful if they would address Rituximab and determination of COVID vaccine effectiveness."

That question wasn't exactly addressed, though the topic was dealt with in a very general way.

And even that general topic is obviously a big issue for many cancer patients, especially blood cancer patients. A lot of us have treatments that leave us immunocompromised, or maybe with an "imperfect immune system." I wrote a little bit about this last week, just before the CDC recommended a booster shot for immunocompromised patients. Most of the comments I have seen from oncologists come down to the same thing -- talk to your doctor about whether this booster is the right choice for you.

To help you with that conversation, the LRF is having another webinar on this topic very soon. The webinar is called "Update on COVID-19 Vaccination and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Guidelines for Lymphoma and CLL Patients." It will happen on August 23, at 1:00pm EDT. You can register for it here. 

The webinar will be led by Dr. John Leonard from Weill Cornell Medicine, maybe one of the best-known lymphoma experts in the world. 

The whole point of this webinar is to provide up-to-date information about Covid vaccines for lymphoma patients, especially information about boosters. There will be a question and answer period here, too (and maybe Crickets question will be answered).

 Here is the overview of the webinar, and the topics being covered:

• Overview of LRF COVID-19 Resources  
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Guideline Vaccine Updates  
• Concerns and Considerations for Lymphoma Patients and Survivors  
• Questions to Ask Your Oncologist / Health Care Provider 
• Question and Answer Session  

It should be a good webinar. I can't guarantee it will answer all of your questions; I think a lot of the answers are going to be some version of "talk to your doctor." BUT, one of the topics listed is important -- "Questions to Ask Your Oncologist / Health Care Provider." So if nothing else, you should come away from the webinar with a way to start that conversation with the doctor.

Summer is usually a little quieter, in terms of new research in Follicular Lymphoma. So it's a nice time to "play catch up," and I hope things like these webinars help you do that.