Researchers from MD Anderson Cancer Center presented retrospective analyses at ESMO showing cancer patients who received an mRNA COVID‑19 vaccine within 100 days of starting immune checkpoint inhibitors lived longer than those who did not. The dataset, drawn from patients with advanced lung and skin cancers, suggests vaccine‑induced immune activation may synergize with checkpoint blockade. Investigators cautioned the data are observational and called for mechanistic studies; they proposed immune priming as a plausible explanation for the survival signal.