Vitamin D levels impact melanoma survival rates, study finds

07 Sep 2022 --- Vitamin D deficiency may lead to lower survival rates for melanoma patients. This is according to a study conducted on participants at the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, Spain and that will be presented at the 31st European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress that will take place in Milan, Italy and online from 7 to 10 September.

Dermatology researchers found that people with low vitamin D levels (less than 10ng/mL) after a melanoma diagnosis had a 2.3% hazard ratio and lower overall survival than those with levels equal to or more than 10ng/mL.

“These findings suggest that vitamin D has a significant impact on people with melanoma, showing in particular that vitamin D deficient patients have lower overall survival,” says Dr. Inés Gracia-Darder, lead researcher from the Hospital University Son Espases, Mallorca, Spain.

“Although the mechanisms underlying the association between vitamin D and overall melanoma survival still require further investigation, this study will hopefully encourage further research examining whether vitamin D supplements may have the ability to improve the prognosis for vitamin D deficient melanoma patients and increase their overall survival.”

Exploring vitamin D’s protective effect
Melanocytes, the cells that give skin its color, can grow out of control, leading to the development of melanoma, a specific type of skin cancer.

According to estimates, melanomas will cause 1.3% of all cancer deaths and 4% of all new cancer diagnoses in the EU-27 in 2020. Of these cases, 50,972 had female diagnoses while 55,597 had male diagnoses. In the EU-27 in 2020, there were 7,031 deaths of women and 9,457 deaths of males.

This study explored the association between normal vitamin D levels and melanoma survival.“Although previous research has identified that normal vitamin D levels play a protective role in melanoma survival, this study aimed to understand this relationship further.”

The retrospective study examined a cohort of 264 patients with invasive melanoma from the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona to determine if vitamin D plays a protective effect in melanoma survival.

In a separate study conducted by the University of Leeds in the UK, vitamin D was found to aid in the prevention and treatment of melanoma.

Using analytic tools
To account for confounding variables, the study used statistical analytic tools like Kaplan-Meir curves and cox regression models to compare overall and melanoma-specific survival differences between groups.

With a hazard ratio of 2.4 in the multivariate analysis, the results held true even when the model was adjusted for age at diagnosis, sex, Breslow index (depth of the melanoma from the skin surface to the deepest point) and the season of the year.

Contrary to earlier research, the current study found no correlation between variations in vitamin D levels and the baseline melanoma features (age, sex, patient phototype, location, histological subtype, Breslow index, ulceration, and mitotic index of tumors). Furthermore, a vitamin D deficiency was not demonstrated to have affected melanoma-specific survival.

Previously, a study led by the Brown University School of Public Health in the US discovered that increasing overall fish consumption is associated with an increased risk of melanoma development.

Edited by Nicole Kerr