New study showed mRNA COVID-19 vaccines help extend cancer survival?

Claim:

In October 2025, a study showed that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines helped extend cancer survival.

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Context

COVID-19 mRNA vaccines create enough of an immunity boost to extend survival in certain types of lung and skin cancers, an analysis of more than 1,000 patient files showed. The scientific journal Nature published a research team’s article about the study on Oct. 22, 2025. The lead scientist told The Washington Post the data needed “to be confirmed in a Phase III trial.”

In October 2025, a rumor spread online that a new study had shown that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines helped prolong cancer survival (mRNA vaccines use laboratory-created messenger RNA — a genetic material that teaches cells how to make a proteins — to trigger an immune response in the body).

For example, on Oct. 20, one X user said (archived): “A new study found that a simple mRNA vaccine – originally made for COVID – nearly doubled survival in patients with advanced lung and skin cancer.”

In a thread outlining the claim, the X user added (archived) that the mRNA vaccines “wake [the immune system] up,” which “boosts the body’s ability to attack tumors.”

In short, the rumor was true. On Oct. 22, 2025, the scientific journal Nature published an article (archived) on the study. It focused on patients with “non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and melanoma [a type of skin cancer]” who received immunotherapy and showed that mRNA COVID-19 jabs acted like an immunity boost.

About the study

A team of researchers from the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas and the University of Florida said some cancer patients who receive immunotherapy, known as “immune checkpoint inhibitors” (ICIs), have no “pre-existing immunity,” which makes the ICIs ineffective in treating them. 

After analyzing the files of more than 1,000 such patients, the findings revealed that the efficacy of ICIs increased when the patients received mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, which activated the immune systems in a way that sensitized tumors to immunotherapy.

As a result, the scientists wrote, survival for NSCLC went from a median of 20.6 months for unvaccinated patients to 37.3 months for those who received the jab (nearly double, as the X user claimed). Survival for melanoma went from 26.67 months for unvaccinated patients to a time so long the researchers could not calculate a median.

“Although we focus on a single therapeutic due to its wide availability, these data could pave the way for other universal mRNA therapeutics specifically designed to reset patient immune systems for enhanced response to immunotherapy,” the researchers wrote. 

The medical community has long been searching for mRNA vaccines to help treat cancer. Personalized mRNA vaccines have already proved effective, but they are costly and labor-intensive. By showing the efficacy of a “one-size-fits-all” mRNA vaccine developed for a different purpose — the COVID-19 virus — on cancer treatment, the study created hope for a universal mRNA vaccine to help boost the efficacy of immunotherapy. Such a universal vaccine would make treatment considerably speedier and more accessible.

The lead scientist, Adam Grippin of MD Anderson, told The Washington Post the findings needed more research. “This data is incredibly exciting, but it needs to be confirmed in a Phase III clinical trial,” Grippin said. (Phase III trials recruit large numbers of patients to verify a drug’s safety and efficacy.)

Snopes contacted Grippin asking for more details about what the next steps would entail. We await a response.