COVID-19 vaccination status and the risk of developing lung diseases: A Mendelian randomization study

Recent studies have suggested an increased incidence of various lung diseases following COVID-19 vaccination. However, causal relationships have not been definitively established. We conducted a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study using publicly available genome-wide association study data to investigate potential causal relationships between COVID-19 vaccination status as the exposure and 14 different lung diseases as outcomes. The analytical methods included random-effects inverse-variance weighting, MR Egger, and weighted median, with additional heterogeneity and sensitivity analyses. Seven instrumental variables for exposure were selected (P < 5 × 10-8). MR analyses revealed that COVID-19 vaccination status was not associated with an increased risk of developing overall lung cancer (P = .78), lung adenocarcinoma (P = .557), squamous cell lung cancer (P = .557), non-small cell lung cancer (P = .173), asthma (P = .905), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bronchiectasis (P = .669), forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 second/FVC (P = .794), pneumonia (P = .282), idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (P = .486), pulmonary embolism (P = .267), pneumothorax (P = .73), or sarcoidosis (P = .732). Evidence of heterogeneity was observed in the inverse-variance weighting model for overall lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and FVC, whereas no indications of horizontal pleiotropy or significant heterogeneity were noted for other lung diseases. COVID-19 vaccination does not appear to increase the risk of developing various lung diseases. These findings support the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in terms of respiratory health, reinforcing their role in public health interventions and vaccination policies.