Vitamin d deficiency as a potentially modifiable risk factor for thyroid cancer.
J Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2012 Jun 1;41(3):160-3.
Roskies M, Dolev Y, Caglar D, Hier MP, Mlynarek A, Majdan A, Payne RJ.
ABSTRACTBackground:Vitamin D, classically involved in calcium homeostasis, has garnered recent interest for its potential role in cancer prevention and therapy. Although few risk factors have been established in the development of well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma, some would argue that no clear modifiable risk factor exists. Our study is one of the first to explore the relationship between vitamin D deficiency and thyroid cancer.
Methods:This retrospective cohort study was done at a university-affiliated thyroid cancer centre. In 2010, 212 patients undergoing thyroidectomy had their preoperative 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 levels recorded in addition to the final pathologies of their resected thyroid nodule. The patients were stratified based on vitamin D status; vitamin D deficiency (VDD), reflecting levels under the established threshold of 37.5 nmol/L; and vitamin D sufficiency (VDS), reflecting levels above it. The primary outcome of malignancy rate was used to compare the proportion of malignant nodules in the VDD versus the VDS groups.
Results:The malignancy rate rises when comparing the VDS and VDD groups, from 37.5 (33 of 88) to 75% (9 of 12), respectively, corresponding to a relative risk of 2.0 (p ?=? .03, 95% CI 1.07-2.66).
Conclusion:This is the first study to demonstrate the inverse relationship between VDD and well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma. Larger prospective studies are needed to replicate these results. Should this happen, VDD may be the first modifiable risk factor for thyroid cancer.
PMID: 22762696
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"The last 40 years have shown triple the incidence of thyroid cancer in women, yet the mortality rate has remained the same"
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Vitamin D Receptor and medullary thyroid cancer - July 2016
Association of vitamin D levels and receptor gene polymorphisms with medullary thyroid cancer
Volume 74, Number 4 (July 2016) | Tehran Univ Med J 2016, 74(4): 274-281 | Back to browse issues page
Mehrnoosh Ramezani1, Mehdi Hedayati2, Saeed Hoseini Asl1, Meraj Tabatabaei3, Mohammad Mazani 4, Shirzad Nasiri5
1- Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, Ardabil University of Medical Science, Ardabil Iran.
2- Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
3- Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
4- Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, Ardabil University of Medical Science, Ardabil Iran. , m.mazani at arums.ac.ir
5- General Surgery and Cancer, Associate Professor of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Shariati Hospital, Tehran, Iran.
Background: Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy. Accounting for approximately 1-2% of all cancers. Thyroid cancers have been divided into four main types: papillary, follicular, medullary and anaplastic. The active form of vitamin D (1,25- (OH) 2-vitamin D3) by binding to its receptor, using genomic and non-genomic mechanisms inhibits the proliferative effect of TSH on thyroid cells. Therefore, vitamin D may have a role in regulating of thyroid gland cell proliferation. Many studies have shown anti-cancer effects of vitamin D in cancers. Polymorphisms of Vitamin D receptor can influence the prevalence to various cancers. In the present study, serum level of vitamin D and FokI, BsmI and Tru9I polymorphism of vitamin D receptor was investigated.
Methods: This case-control study was performed in the summer of 2015 in Endocrinology and Metabolism Center of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Forty medullary thyroid cancer patients and 40 healthy controls were investigated. Genomic DNA of subjects was extracted with saturated salt/proteinase K and polymorphisms of vitamin D receptor gene investigated by polymerase chain reaction-sequencing. Serum level of vitamin D evaluated by ELISA technique. The results were analyzed by SPSS, ver. 20 (Chicago, IL, USA) and GraphPad Prism, ver. 5 (GraphPad, Inc., CA, USA) softwares.
Results: Genotypic and allelic abundance of FokI and BsmI polymorphisms between test and control groups have not shown significant different.
In Tru9I polymorphism,
- Tt genotype abundance in test group were 45 percent and in
- control group were 17.5 percent and
- t allelic abundance in test group were 25 percent and in
- control group were 8.7 percent which this different were significant.
Average serum level of vitamin D in test group was 23.32 ng/ml and in control group was 18.95 ng/ml which was statistically significant.
Conclusion: Unexpectedly, serum levels of vitamin D in test group were higher than control group.
Tru9I polymorphism is significantly correlated to medullary thyroid carcinoma prevalence.
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- Note: in some VDR cases the blood levels of vitamin D are higher. It appears that the body somewhat compensates for getting low vitamin D to the cells by increasing the vitamin D levels in the blood