Regional lymphadenopathy following COVID-19 vaccination: Literature review and considerations for patient management in breast cancer care
Ce dossier présente un ensemble d'articles concernant la prise en charge des cancers durant la crise sanitaire liée au COVID-19
Purpose : Over 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been already administered across the US, the UK and the EU at the time of writing. Furthermore, 1.82 million of booster doses have been administered in the US since 13th August, and similar booster programmes are currently planned or under consideration in the UK and the EU beginning in the autumn of 2021. Early reports showed an association between vaccine administration and the development of ipsilateral axillary and supraclavicular lymphadenopathy which could interfere with the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of breast cancer patients. In this paper, we review the available evidence on vaccine-related lymphadenopathy, and we discuss the clinical implications of same on breast cancer diagnosis and management.
Methods : A literature search was performed - PubMed, Ovid Medline, Scopus, CINHAL, Springer Nature, Sciencedirect, Academic Search Premiere and the Directory of Open Access Journals were searched for articles reporting on regional palpable or image-detected lymphadenopathy following COVID-19 vaccination. Separately, we compiled a series of case studies from the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, UK and the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, USA to illustrate the impact that regional lymphadenopathy post-COVID-19 vaccination can have on the diagnosis and management of patients being seen in diagnostic and therapeutic breast clinics.
Results : From the literature search 15 studies met the inclusion criteria (n = 2057 patients, 737 with lymphadenopathy). The incidence of lymphadenopathy ranged between 14.5% and 53% and persisted for >6 weeks in 29% of patients.
Conclusions : Clinicians managing breast cancer patients should be aware that the COVID-19 vaccination may result in regional lymphadenopathy in a significant number of patients which can result in unnecessary investigations, treatment and increased patient anxiety. An accurate COVID-19 vaccination history should be collected from all patients where regional lymphadenopathy is a clinical &/or an imaging finding and then combined with clinical judgment when managing individual cases.
European Journal of Cancer , résumé, 2020