Background: Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to an elevated risk of cancer and poor outcomes. This study was conducted to explore the potential impact of vitamin D status on cancer progression and severity in pediatric patients.
Methods: The current study adopted a case-control design to investigate the relationship between serum vitamin D levels and cancer stage and grading in pediatric patients. The case group comprised newly diagnosed cases of children and adolescents with various types of cancer admitted to Ali Asghar Hospital between 2023 - 2024. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software version 24, with a significance level set at less than 0.05.
Results: A total of 155 patients were included in the study, with 72 patients in the case group and 86 patients in the control group. Among the participants, 26 (36.1%) and 32 (38.6%) subjects in the case and control groups were girls, respectively. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) accounted for 16.1% of the cases, followed by retinoblastoma (5.8%) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML) (4.5%) as the most frequent cancer types observed. Notably, the analysis of vitamin D serum levels revealed no significant difference between the case group (median: 25, range: 76-4) and the control group (median: 27, range: 69.5-12). Furthermore, the comparison of vitamin D serum levels across different cancer stages did not show any significant differences.
Conclusion: Our findings show that children with newly diagnosed cancer have 25 (OH) D3 levels identical to their healthy matches. However, the importance of our findings to cancer progression is unclear and needs further investigations.