| Institution: | 1. Section of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Leeds Institute of Cancer and Pathology, University of Leeds, , Leeds, UK;2. Genetic Epidemiology, German Cancer Research Center, , Heidelberg, Germany;3. Department of Cancer Epidemiology, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, , Tampa, FL, USA;4. Department of Dermatology, Instituto Valenciano de Oncología c/Profesor Beltrán Báguena, , Valencia, Spain;5. Department of Oncology‐Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital Solna, , Stockholm, Sweden;6. Departments of Oncology and Cancer Epidemiology, Lund University, , Lund, Sweden;7. Melanoma research group, Leids Universitair Mediasch Centrum, , Leiden, the Netherlands;8. Department of Dermatology, Division of General Dermatology, Medical University of Vienna, , Vienna, Austria;9. Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Center, , Riga, Latvia;10. Melanoma Unit, Department of Dermatology, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, IDIBAPS, Barcelona University, , Barcelona, Spain;11. Centre of Biomedical Research on Rare Diseases (CIBERER), ISCIII, , Barcelona, Spain;12. Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Essen, , Essen, Germany;13. Department of Molecular Biology, Instituto Valenciano de Oncología c/Profesor Beltrán Báguena, , Valencia, Spain;14. Department of Dermatology, University of Athens School of Medicine, Andreas Sygros Hospital, , Athens, Greece |
| Abstract: | An association between low serum vitamin D levels and poorer melanoma survival has been reported. We have studied inheritance of a polymorphism of the GC gene, rs2282679, coding for the vitamin D‐binding protein, which is associated with lower serum levels of vitamin D, in a meta‐analysis of 3137 melanoma patients. The aim was to investigate evidence for a causal relationship between vitamin D and outcome (Mendelian randomization). The variant was not associated with reduced overall survival (OS) in the UK cohort, per‐allele hazard ratio (HR) for death 1.23 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.93, 1.64). In the smaller cohorts, HR in OS analysis was 1.07 (95% CI 0.88, 1.3) and for all cohorts combined, HR for OS was 1.09 (95% CI 0.93, 1.29). There was evidence of increased melanoma‐specific deaths in the seven cohorts for which these data were available. The lack of unequivocal findings despite the large sample size illustrates the difficulties of implementing Mendelian randomization. |
