Examining the Vitamin D Status of Children With Solid Tumors.

Journal of the American College of Nutrition. 2020;39(2):128-134
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Literature shows that 75% of the adult population worldwide experience vitamin D deficiency, of whom 13% fall under the category of extremely severe vitamin D deficiency (<10 ng/ml). The aim of this retrospective study was to compare the Vitamin D status of children with tumours or without. A secondary aim was to analyse the effects of vitamin D supplementation (as a complement to cancer treatment) on the vitamin D levels of children. The study included 173 children (males n=96; females n=77) aged between 0 and 18 who were treated for cancer. The control group consisted of 569 (males n=310; females n=259) children, aged 0 to 4 who received treatment at the clinic for reasons other than cancer. Results indicate that initial Vitamin D levels were significantly lower among children with cancer (19% lower than in the control group). A correlation between insufficient and deficient initial serum vitamin D levels and unfavourable prognosis was found. Authors suggest that vitamin D supplementation would be most efficient if medicine would follow the present trend of personalised therapy.

Abstract

Objective: Our aims were to compare the vitamin D status of children with and without cancer and to examine the possible correlation between vitamin D levels in children with cancer before initiating treatment and prognosis.Method: We compared the data of 173 children with cancer with those of 569 children without cancer.Results: We measured a significant difference (p = 1.34E-08) between the vitamin D levels of children with cancer before treatment and children without cancer. There was a significant correlation between the initial vitamin D levels of children with cancer and the prognosis (p = 0.016, odds ratio = 51.33) at 5% significance.Conclusions: The average vitamin D level was 19.76% lower in the population with cancer compared with the average of the control group, and we found a correlation between the lower vitamin D levels in children with cancer and the adverse prognosis. We suggest that supplying vitamin D is reasonable and a prospective study of vitamin D in pediatric patients with cancer is recommended.

Lifestyle medicine

Fundamental Clinical Imbalances : Immune and inflammation
Patient Centred Factors : Triggers/Vitamin D
Environmental Inputs : Diet ; Nutrients
Personal Lifestyle Factors : Nutrition
Functional Laboratory Testing : Blood

Methodological quality

Jadad score : Not applicable
Allocation concealment : Not applicable
Publication Type : Journal Article

Metadata

Nutrition Evidence keywords : Vitamin D ; Deficiency ; Enzymes ; Body mass index ; BMI