443P - Efficacy of vitamin D supplementation in overall survival of cancer patients: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Background

The low survival rate of cancer patients, especially patients who got metastases, necessitates an approach in providing additional therapy that is safe, capable of delaying disease progression, and prolonging patient survival. Vitamin D is an adjunctive therapy that is easy to obtain and shows anti-neoplastic activity against cancer so that it can reduce mortality. This study aimed to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis regarding the efficacy of vitamin D supplementation in overall survival (OS) of cancer patients.

Methods

A systematic search of various databases up to end of 2022 was conducted to identify Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) involving the efficacy of vitamin D supplementation in OS of cancer patients. By using a random effect model, pooled hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated to determine the values of OS. In formulating the study problem, we determine the study questions based on the study background, which consists of the populations (P), interventions (I), comparisons (C), and outcomes (O). The populations were cancer patients. The intervention was administration of vitamin D supplementation. The comparison was no administration of vitamin D supplementation. The outcome was OS. The RCTs having cancer patients over 18 years of age with available and sufficient information about OS were the inclusion criteria of this study. Study that has participants taking vitamin D supplementation regularly, and ongoing study with results not presented or published at the time of the literature search were the exclusion criteria of this study.

Results

Of the six RCTs, analysis was performed on 1,916 cancer patients in this study. In terms of survival, statistically, there was no difference in OS [HR 0.97, 95% CI 0.74 – 1.28, p = 0.85] between vitamin D supplementation and no supplementation in cancer patients.

Conclusions

Although vitamin D supplementation does not improve OS in cancer patients, is could be considered because it still shows benefits for cancer patients.

Clinical trial identification

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Sam Ratulangi University / Prof. dr. R. D. Kandou General Hospital, Manado, Indonesia.

Funding

Has not received any funding.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.