Evaluation of Serum Vitamin D and Calcium Levels in Breast Cancer Patients in Khartoum State

Abstract

Breast cancer is a common disease with major public health implications. Some evidence suggests that Vitamin D may reduce breast cancer risk, through its action on proliferation and apoptosis. Calcium may also have anticarcinogenic properties that include regulation of cell differentiation, proliferation, and apoptosis. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out to evaluate serum Vitamin D and calcium levels in women with breast cancer, and to correlate serum vitamin D and calcium levels with risk factors of breast cancer. Sixty patients with breast cancer and thirty healthy individuals as control group were enrolled in this study; the study was carried out in radio isotope centre Khartoum (RICK), during the period from April to August 2013. Serum vitamin D level in both patient and control group was estimated using ELISA competitive assay, serum calcium level was estimated by spectrophotometeric method, data analyzed using t- test and Pearson correlation in SPSS computer program. The results showed high percentages of breast cancer among postmenopausal (63.3%) compared with premenopausal women. vitamin D level is decreased significantly in patients group versus control group (P-value 0.001),there is significant decrease of vitamin D with increasing age group (P-value 0.04).but the results of calcium showed insignificant variation in patients when compared with control group. The correlation analysis between vitamin D and calcium resulting in no correlation (Pearson's r: 0.03). In conclusion, vitamin D level decrease in women with breast cancer and inversely correlate with age. There is no difference in the mean of calcium level between patients and control. Further investigation is needed to determine the association between vitamin D and calcium level versus breast cancer stage and metastasis.