The relationships between vitamin D levels and chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection and treatment outcomes are poorly elucidated. We measured pre-treatment serum vitamin D (25-hydroxyvitamin D3; 25[OHD3) levels and determined their association with clinical parameters and treatment outcomes in active CHB patients without advanced liver disease enrolled in a global clinical trial.
Patients were randomly assigned to either 48 weeks of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) plus peginterferon alfa-2a (PEG-IFN), TDF plus PEG-IFN for 16 weeks followed by TDF for 32 weeks, PEG-IFN for 48 weeks, or TDF for 120 weeks. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to determine associations between vitamin D, baseline factors, and week 48 clinical outcome.
Of 737 patients, 35% had insufficient (⩾20 but <31 ng/mL) and 58% had deficient (<20 ng/mL) vitamin D levels. In univariate analysis, lower vitamin D levels were significantly associated with the following baseline parameters: younger age, lower uric acid levels, HBeAg-positive status, lower calcium levels, blood draw in winter or autumn, and HBV genotype D. On multivariate analysis, only HBV genotype, season of blood draw, calcium level, and age retained their association. High baseline level of vitamin D was associated with low HBV DNA, normal ALT and HBsAg at week 48 independent of treatment groups, but the association - with the exception of ALT - became statistically insignificant after adjusting for age, gender and HBeAg and HBV genotype.
Abnormally low vitamin D levels are highly prevalent among untreated, active CHB patients. Baseline vitamin D levels are not associated with treatment outcomes, but were associated with normal ALT.
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science
3
4%
Other
6
8%
Unknown
26
37%
Attention Score in Context
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 July 2015.
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#16,047,334
of 25,374,647 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Hepatology
#5,119
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#146,222
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Outputs of similar age from Journal of Hepatology
#49
of 81 outputs
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