Association between Bacillus Calmette–Guérin vaccination and lymphoma: a population‐based birth cohort study

Abstract

Association between Bacillus Calmette-Gu erin vaccination and lymphoma: a population-based birth cohort study. J Intern Med 2019; 286: 583-595.Background. Most risk factors for lymphoma identified so far relate to immunosuppression, but its aetiology remains unclear.Objectives. We investigated whether Bacillus Calmette-Gu erin (BCG) vaccination is associated with lymphoma, overall and separately for Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). Methods.A cohort of 400 611 subjects born in the province of Qu ebec, Canada, between 1970 and 1974 was used. Information on BCG vaccination was extracted from the Quebec BCG Vaccination Registry. Lymphomas cases were individuals who had ≥2 health encounters, medical visits or hospitalizations, for lymphoma within 2 months or who were identified through the Quebec Tumor Registry. Cox proportional hazard regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence interval (CI), adjusting for potential confounders.Results. A total of 178 335 (46.0%) subjects were BCGvaccinated, and 1478 (0.38%) cases of lymphomas were ascertained. Amongst them, 922 were identified as NHL and 421 as HL. After adjustment, no association was observed between BCG vaccination and either lymphoma (any type) (HR = 1.03, 95% CI: 0.96-1.11) or NHL (HR = 0.99, 95% CI: 0.86-1.13). For HL, nonproportional hazards were observed. Before the age of 18, the risk of HL was elevated amongst vaccinated individuals (HR = 2.26, 95% CI: 1.39-3.69). However after 18 years of age, no association was found (HR = 0.93, 95% CI: 0.75-1.15).Conclusion. Bacillus Calmette-Gu erin vaccination may increase the risk of HL before 18 years of age, but residual confounding cannot entirely be excluded. Given the benefits of BCG vaccination, these results need to be reproduced in other populations before firm conclusions can be drawn.

Bacillus Calmette-Guerin 's beneficial impact on glucose metabolism: Evidence for broad based applications

“…Repeat BCG vaccinations in longstanding T1D lower blood sugars in clinical trials ( Faustman et al., 2012 ; Kühtreiber et al., 2018 ). Lastly, the BCG vaccine has been used globally for the past 40 years to treat bladder cancer and, more recently, to treat lymphoma and lung cancer ( Babjuk et al., 2017 ; Davignon et al., 1971 ; Morales et al., 1976 ; Odom et al., 1988 ; Salmon et al., 2019 , 2020 ; Usher et al., 2019 ).…”

Incidence of Several Forms of Tuberculosis (TB) and Their Bacillus Calamette Guerin (BCG) Vaccination Status among Children

“…BCG has been proven to provide high resistance to common and miliary forms of tuberculosis (80% of cases). In pulmonary tuberculosis, protection is much less (50% of cases) 16 . International studies show that the BCG vaccine is very beneficial in preventing childhood tuberculosis.…”

BCG Vaccination: A potential tool against COVID-19 and COVID-19-like Black Swan incidents

“…By analyzing the above data, it is not difficult to see that children and infants' mortality decreased by approximately 50% after BCG vaccination. BCG's protection can hardly explain this data against TB alone, which may be related to BCG's protection against unrelated infectious agents (including viruses, bacteria, and protozoa) [24] , [25] , [26] , [27] , [28] , [29] , [30] , [31] , [32] , [33] , [34] , [35] , [36] , [37] , [38] , [39] , [40] , [41] , [42] , [43] , [44] , [45] ( Table 1 ). These beneficial effects have been considered to be related to the nonspecific effects, including prophylactic protection effects, immunotherapy effects, as well as enhancement effects on other vaccines.…”