If You Have Cancer It’s More Important Than Ever to Get a Flu Shot Amid COVID-19

The American Cancer Society guidelines encourage cancer patients get the flu shot, delivering an inactive version of the virus, each year. (It must be given each year because the influenza virus changes.)

However, Dr. Heather Yeo, a surgical oncologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, told SurvivorNet, that people with cancer should be sure to talk to their medical care teams before getting the vaccine; the team will help determine the best time to get it depending on cancer type and treatment. "It’s important for cancer patients to get it but they need to coordinate with their providers when they get it," she explained.

Flu Shot Even More Important Now

If you have cancer, it’s especially important for you to consider a flu vaccine in any year! The reasoning is simple: the influenza virus can pose greater risk to your health, given your compromised immune systems.

"It's important because they are at increased risks when they’re undergoing certain treatments that actually can knock down their immune system so, they are in general, at higher risk if they're exposed," Dr. Yeo told SurvivorNet.

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And while that's generally true, it may be more true than ever in a season which includes a worldwide pandemic. "I think it's particularly important [this year] because the symptoms between the flu and COVID-19 are very similar,” the doctor explained, and therefore could be easily confused.

She also emphasized the importance for people with cancer to maintain good hygiene, social distance, and wear masks for their safety during flu season.

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Your Cancer Care Team Should Guide Timing

While medical professionals are advising you to get the vaccine if you are fighting cancer, you should clear it with your doctors first in order to get a sign-off.

"In some cases when they’re in the middle of treatment, [providers] don’t necessarily want to give it to them, so it really just depends," Dr. Yeo told SurvivorNet. "They want to make sure that their immune system is strong enough to actually develop an immune response.”

Loved Ones Should Also Get a Flu Shot

Not just the person with cancer, but the loved ones and community of people who interact with that person should also get the flu vaccine.

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"Anyone who has family members who are at risk are actually the most important to get vaccinated," Dr. Yeo says. "So, children should get vaccinated, health care providers should get vaccinated. It's important that those of us who have healthy immune systems try and get vaccinated," in part to help protect those more vulnerable around us.

"The flu vaccine is not 100 percent effective, but if you get the flu and you’ve been vaccinated, the chance that you’re going to have severe disease is less, and the chance that you’ll come down with disease is less," Dr. Yeo says. "So the more that we can protect at-risk individuals, the better."

Flu Shot or the Mist?

The flu vaccine typically comes as either a shot containing an inactive version of the virus, administered through a needle in the arm; or the mist, a live version of the virus given as a nasal spray. And Dr. Jessica Geiger, a medical oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center, told SurvivorNet that patients with cancer should definitely get vaccinated, but with the shot versus the mist.

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"Patients with cancer should only get the flu shot, the inactive vaccine, as opposed to the nasal spray, the live vaccine," Dr. Geiger said.

Indeed, the American Cancer Society guidelines clearly specify: "People with cancer should not get the nasal mist flu vaccine."

When Should I Get the Flu Shot If I Have Cancer?

Dr. Yeo explains that the recommendation to get the flu vaccine typically starts a little bit later in the fall, "because influenza changes from year to year, they try and get the three to four most prevalent strains vaccinated for, and the immune response is not long-lived.”

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But the doctor got her own flu shot already in mid-September. "I think people are getting it a little bit earlier this year because COVID is still ongoing,” she says. "And the fewer cases we have of both the flu and COVID, the better it is as providers are potentially going to have to face a second wave."

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