الفهرس 
Vitamin DOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
Abstract
Vitamin D is essential both for normal bone structure and for serum calcium maintenance through the regulation of calcium absorption in the gut and reabsorption by the kidney, which is mediated by the vitamin D receptor (VDR). The expression of VDR in a variety of cell lines coupled with increased evidence of VDR involvement in cell differentiation and inhibition of cellular proliferation suggests that vitamin D plays a role in many diseases. Vitamin D is involved in cell adhesion, apoptosis, differentiation and division. Breast, colon, and prostate cancers assume major health problem in Egypt .Correction of vitamin D status may be introduced as a preventive strategy. Vitamin D inadequacy constitutes a largely unrecognized epidemic in many populations worldwide. Few studies have directly measured vitamin D concentrations on risk of cancer incidence or mortality.
The aim of this work to assess the frequency of vitamin D deficiency in Egyptian patients with colon, breast and prostate cancer in comparison to healthy controls, so as to determine whether these cancers are associated with vitamin D deficiency as a possible risk factor.
Our study was conducted in Ain Shams University Hospitals and included fourty five (45) patients newly diagnosed with established cancers of breast, prostate and colon. They were 23 patients with breast cancer, 16 patients with colon cancer and 6 patients with prostate cancer. Their ages ranged from 36 to 64 with a median age of 55 years. The study also included fifteen (15) healthy age, sex and season of serum sample matched controls. Their age ranged from 44 to 55 years with median age of 47years.
Among patients group 6.7% had normal level of vitamin D, 46.7% had insufficient vitamin D and 46.7% patients were deficient for vitamin D. On the other hand, among control group 40% had normal level of vitamin D, 60% had insufficient vitamin D, whereas no one (0%) showed deficient vitamin D level.
Our results showed highly significant decrease in vitamin D levels among all patients, colon cancer group and breast cancer group (p<0,001), compared to controls while there was no significant difference between control group and prostate cancer group (p>0.05).
Compared to each other, those was a highly significant decrease in vitamin D level in breast cancer group as well as when compared to prostate cancer group (p<0.001), while there was non-significant difference between the both the breast cancer and colon cancer group (P>0.05).
Our results revealed non significant difference between patients with metastasis and patients free of metastasis within all cases (P>0.05), non within breast, prostate and colon cancer groups as regards vitamin D levels (P>0.05).
Our results also showed slightly significant decrease in vitamin D level when patients with inadequate sun exposure were compared to patients with adequate sun exposure (p < 0.05).
Prostate cancer patients revealed (0.0%) vitamin D deficiency while all patients were exposed to adequate sun.
Correlation studied revealed non-exciting significant correlation between vitamin D levels and age group (P>0.05), non tumor marker levels, except for CA is in cancer breast group (P<0.05).