(bright subtle music) - Cancer patients getting vaccines, I think is even more important than for patients who do not have cancer.

(bright subtle music) Hello, my name is Amine El Kadmiri, with Nashville General Hospital.

On today's "For Your Good Health", we are going to talk about vaccines for cancer patients.

(bright subtle music) The way we approach vaccines for cancer patients is really not that much different than we would approach it for patients who do not have cancer.

Patients who have a cancer tend to have an immune system that may be a little bit compromised, or sometimes even more severely compromised, depending on the situation.

But most of the time, vaccines are still beneficial for cancer patients.

It may not give you 100% protection against the disease and you may still catch the flu, or you may still catch COVID-19, but the risk of a severe disease, or the risk of being hospitalized, and being, for example, in the Intensive Care Unit, that risk goes way down when you're vaccinated.

(bright subtle music) So, in cancer patients, for the most part, the side effects from vaccines are going to be the same.

You may have a little bit of a fever, or muscle pains or joint pains, or feeling like a little bit like, almost like you're having a little bit of the flu.

But that's normal, because that's your immune system that's actually waking up, and actually reacting to the vaccine to provide you protection in the future if you ever get that specific infection.

And usually when you have those side effects it's actually a good sign that your body is responding to the vaccine.

(bright subtle music) The benefit of the vaccine actually outweighs any risk that's associated with the vaccine.

Again, my name is Amine El Kadmiri.

Thank you for watching "For Your Good Health".

We hope you have found this information helpful.

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