Vitamin D supplementation and clinical outcomes in cancer survivorship

Abstract

Increasing evidence points to the role of vitamin D supplementation in cancer management. A comprehensive search of online databases was undertaken for all research studies relating to vitamin D supplementation in cancer survivorship published up to November 2017. Eighteen studies meeting the inclusion criteria were selected for this review, the majority of which involved supplementation in breast cancer. This review concludes that vitamin D supplementation plays an important role in disease-free survival in a number of cancers, particularly breast. In other cancers, the role of supplementation is less clear, and more research is required. More research is also required to investigate the most effective dose and duration of vitamin D supplementation to benefit cancer survivors.