A small study in France has suggested that lung cancer patients may get good protection from mRNA COVID-19 vaccines even while undergoing treatments that suppress the immune system, Reuters news agency reported on Tuesday.

From January through to July 2021, researchers in France administered the Pfizer (NYSE:PFE)/BioNTech (Nasdaq:BNTX) COVID-19 vaccine to 306 lung cancer patients, 70% of whom had recently received immunosuppressive therapies that impair the body's ability to respond to vaccines.

According to a paper released on Monday and scheduled for publication in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, patients with COVID-19 antibodies from a previous infection received only one dose, while most patients, however, received both doses.

About 10% of the patients failed to develop antibodies in response to the first two doses and received a third dose, which successfully induced antibodies in all but three individuals who also had blood disorders known to impair the effect of the vaccines.

The researchers noted that before vaccines, the death rate among lung cancer patients who developed COVID-19 was 30%.

In this seven-month study, only eight patients, or 2.6% of the total, developed mild cases of COVID-19.

According to the researchers, since this study was small and not randomised, more research is called for to confirm their findings.