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Pre-treatment VD levels and VDR receptors as potential predictors of occurrence and overall survival in paediatric patients with solid tumours—a single institution pilot study

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Tumor Biology

Abstract

Recently, vitamin D has been recognized as an important player in the immune system, and multiple studies suggested its involvement in cancer, too. The aims of this study were to investigate selected single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the VDR gene, BsmI (rs1544410; A > G), FokI (rs 2228570; C > T), TaqI (rs731236; T > C), ApaI (rs 7975232; C > T) and Cdx-2 (rs11568820; A > G), and to evaluate their possible predictive role for outcomes in patients with paediatric solid tumours. A total of 111 children with paediatric solid tumours were enrolled at the Department of Paediatric Oncology, University Hospital Brno (Brno, Czech Republic) along with a control population of 787 adults; all study subjects were available for genotyping of selected SNPs, and the prediagnostic levels of 25-hydroxycholecalciferol (25(OH)D3) and 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol (1,25(OH)2D3) were measured in the cases, too. In FokI, the heterozygote CT genotype was weakly associated with a decreased risk of paediatric solid cancer occurrence 0.82 (0.53–1.28), while the CC genotype was associated with a decreased risk of 0.58 (0.30–1.09), p = 0.09. The 1,25(OH)2D3 prediagnostic levels were indicative of the overall survival in the cases (β = −0.012, HR 0.988, 95 % CI (0.978–0.998), while higher prediagnostic levels of 1,25(OH)2D3 were associated with a statistically significant increase in overall mortality. We observed multiple effects of the alleles of the investigated polymorphisms and of 1,25(OH)2D3 on overall survival, regardless of the underlying disease.

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Acknowledgments

Each author has made an important scientific contribution to the study and has assisted with the drafting or revising of the manuscript in accordance with the definition of an author as stated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. This study was supported by the CETOCOEN PLUS project and the RECETOX infrastructure that is supported by the Czech Ministry of Education (LM2011028).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathological Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Kamenice 5, Building A18, 625 00, Brno, Czech Republic

    Julie Bienertová-Vašků, Filip Zlámal & Zbyněk Šplíchal

  2. Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Kamenice 5, Building A16, 625 00, Brno, Czech Republic

    Josef Tomandl

  3. Department of Paediatric Oncology, University Hospital Brno, Černopolní 22, Brno, 613 00, Czech Republic

    Julie Bienertová-Vašků, Klára Drábová, Michal Kýr & Jaroslav Štěrba

  4. Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment, Masaryk University, Kamenice 5, A29, Brno, 625 00, Czech Republic

    Julie Bienertová-Vašků & Filip Zlámal

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  1. Julie Bienertová-Vašků
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  2. Klára Drábová
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  7. Jaroslav Štěrba
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Correspondence to Julie Bienertová-Vašků.

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This study, including the consent protocol, was approved by a local ethics committee in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants.

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Bienertová-Vašků, J., Drábová, K., Zlámal, F. et al. Pre-treatment VD levels and VDR receptors as potential predictors of occurrence and overall survival in paediatric patients with solid tumours—a single institution pilot study. Tumor Biol. 37, 9209–9219 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13277-016-4820-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13277-016-4820-9

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