Overall Survival Dips With Vitamin D Deficiency in Melanoma

Patients with melanoma who are deficient in vitamin D have significantly worse overall survival than those with higher levels, according to research presented at the 31st Congress of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology. Whereas the 5-year overall survival was 90% when vitamin D serum levels were above a 10 ng/mL threshold, it was 84% when levels fell below it. Notably, the gap in overall survival between those above and below the threshold appeared to widen as time went on. Dr Inés Gracia-Darder The research adds to existing evidence that "vitamin D levels can play an important and independent role in patients' survival outcomes," study investigator Inés Gracia-Darder, MD, told Medscape Dermatology. "The important application in clinical practice would be to know if vitamin D supplementation influences the survival of melanoma patients," said Gracia-Darder, a clinical specialist in dermatology at the Hospital Universitari Son Espases, Mallorca, Spain. Known Association, but Not Much Data "It is not a new finding," but there are limited data, especially in melanoma, said Julie De Smedt, MD, of KU Leuven in Leuven, Belgium, who was asked to comment on the results. Other groups have shown, certainly for cancer in general, that vitamin D can have an effect on overall survival. "Low levels of vitamin D are associated with the pathological parameters of the melanoma, such as the thickness of the tumor," De Smedt said in an interview, indicating that it's not just overall survival that might be affected. "So we assume that also has an effect on melanoma-specific survival," she added. That assumption, however, is not supported by the data Gracia-Darder presented, as there was no difference in melanoma-specific survival among the two groups of patients that had been studied. Retrospective Cohort Analysis Vitamin D levels had been studied in 264 patients who were included in the retrospective cohort analysis. All had invasive melanomas, and all had been seen at the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona between January 1998 and June 2021. Their mean age was 57 years, and the median follow-up was 6.7 years. 0