Vitamin D supplementation does not affect survival in patients with Hodgkin’s lymphoma

Abstract

Background Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL) is a B-cell lymphoproliferative tumor that has an excellent prognosis in most patients using chemotherapeutic protocols, with or without radiation. Some populations including aged people and adolescents and young adults did not gain similar benefits from treatment advances when compared with pediatric and other adult patients. Vitamin D deficiency was suggested as a risk factor for many malignant tumors, and its supplementation may have a role in management of some cancers. Aim This study aimed to evaluate vitamin D levels in patients with HL at presentation and after 12 weeks of supplementation in relation to treatment outcome. Patients and methods A total of 24 treatment-naive patients with pathologically confirmed HL were consecutively recruited. Vitamin D levels were assessed at presentation and after 12 weeks of vitamin D supplementation using automated electrochemiluminescence binding assay. All patients received ABVD protocol as a first-line therapy. The outcome of patients after the six cycles was classified as complete response, partial response, stable disease, or relapsed/progressive disease. Results Female patients and those with B symptoms had significantly lower vitamin D levels (P=0.032 and 0.045, respectively). Patients who failed to respond to ABVD had significantly lower vitamin D levels compared with that of responders (P=0.022). Vitamin D levels did not affect progression-free survival (log-rank test P=0.69). Conclusion Lower vitamin D level was associated with nonresponsiveness to ABVD regimen. Vitamin D supplementation in patients with HL did not alter the progression-free survival of the studied patients. However, these findings await more validation through recruiting larger cohorts of patients for longer follow-up periods.