Vitamin D deficiency in melanoma patients is associated with worse overall survival: a retrospective cohort study.

ABSTRACT

Recent interest has emerged in the protective role of vitamin D in melanoma survival and is the subject of multiple studies with heterogeneous results. Here, we present a retrospective cohort study of 264 patients with invasive melanoma from a tertiary university hospital. The aim of the study was to analyze the relationship between vitamin D levels and prognosis of melanoma patients. We found that lower vitamin D levels are independently associated with worse overall survival in melanoma patients in concordance with previous studies on other populations. Vitamin D deficiency could play a survival role in melanoma patients,. Future prospective studies are needed to investigate the effect of vitamin D supplementation on melanoma outcomes.