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Vitamin D deficiency is a common problem all over the world. Growing evidence suggest that there is connection vitamin D and cardio-metabolic disease and cancer. Low-circulating 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25-OH-D) has been associated with various malignancies, although it remains unclear whether vitamin D deficiency exerts as a causal effect on the development of malignancies.

Subjects  : A total of 61 patients with CML (31 women, 30 men) were recruited in this cross-sectional study from hematology clinics of Katip Celebi University Ataturk Training and Research Hospital between June 2014 and September 2014.The study was approved by the human research ethics committee of the hospital and informed consent was obtained from all participants. Vitamin D status as defined; severe deficiency ≤ 10 ng/ml; deficiency 10-20 ng/ml; insufficiency 20-30 ng/ml; sufficiency ≥ 30 ng/ml (1). Treatment responses were evaluated according to the ELN recommendations.

Statistical : All analyses were performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Software, version 18.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, USA). In view of the subjects number for each groups, patients were divided into two groups according to their vitamin D levels (group 1 ≤ 10 ng/ml, group 2 > 10 ng/ml) and two groups were compared with clinic and laboratory feature using Mann-Whitney U test. Among the groups difference in gender distribution was analyzed by x2 analysis. To evaluate vitamin D levels on molecular response, we used binary logistic regression analysis. In the model, molecular response was defined as a dependent variable and subjects were categorized to their vitamin D levels; ≤ 10 ng/ml an >10 ng/ml and also which were added the analysis as a categorical variable. To clarify effect of potential confounders; sokal score, gender and type of treatment, we added these variables in the model as a consecutively. All reported confidence interval (CI) values are calculated at the 95% level. A two-sided p value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant.

According to the vitamin D levels; 37 (60.7%) patients had ≤ 10 ng/ml, 19 (31.1%) patients had 10-20 ng/ml and 5 (8.2%) patients had 20-30 ng/ml. In our study population no subjects had sufficient vitamin D levels. In unadjusted logistic regression models, increased vitamin D levels were significantly associated with molecular response. After adjusting potential confounders, this association was slightly diminished but it is still remained

In present study, we demonstrated for the first time that lower circulating 25-OH-D levels were independently associated with molecular unresponsive in subjects with chronic myeloid leukemia after adjusting for potential confounders.There are some limitations to the current study. The size of study population was relatively small and the cross-sectional design of the study cannot prove causality. These findings are initial and provoking, but this association should be verified in another larger population using a prospective-cohort design. Taken together, our results indicate for the first time that decreased circulating 25-OH-D levels were associated with molecular unresponsive in patients with CML. 25-OH-D may contribute to molecular response in the patients