Association between pre-diagnostic circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D and cancer survival

Authors

• SJ Weinstein
• AM Mondul
• K Yu
• TM Layne
• CC Abnet
• ND Freedman
• RZ Stolzenberg-Solomon
• U LIm
• MH Gail
• D Albanes

Abstract

Vitamin D has been associated with increased overall cancer survival in some, but not all, studies, and few investigations have prospectively examined specific cancer sites. We examined pre-diagnostic serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D], the accepted biomarker of vitamin D status, in relation to overall and site-specific cancer survival in the Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention (ATBC) Study cohort of Finnish men. The analysis included 4,616 men with measured serum 25(OH)D who were diagnosed with cancer during 22 years of follow-up. Of these, 2,884 died of their cancer and 1,732 died of other causes or survived. Multivariable-adjusted proportional hazard regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the association between pre-diagnostic 25(OH)D and overall and site-specific cancer survival. Serum 25(OH)D was significantly lower among cases who subsequently died from their malignancy compared with those who did not (medians 34.7 vs. 36.5 nmol/L, respectively; p=0.01). Higher 25(OH)D was associated with lower overall cancer mortality (HR=0.76, 95% CI 0.67-0.85 for highest vs. lowest quintile, p-trend

Scientific Focus Area: Epidemiology

This page was last updated on Friday, March 26, 2021