Mendelian randomisation study of the relationship between vitamin D and risk of glioma

• To examine for a causal relationship between vitamin D and glioma risk we performed an analysis of genetic variants associated with serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH) D) levels using Mendelian randomisation (MR), an approach unaffected by biases from confounding. Two-sample MR was undertaken using genome-wide association study data. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with 25(OH) D levels were used as instrumental variables (IVs). We calculated MR estimates for the odds ratio (OR) for 25(OH) D levels with glioma using SNP-glioma estimates from 12,488 cases and 18,169 controls, using inverse-variance weighted (IVW) and maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) methods. A non-significant association between 25(OH) D levels and glioma risk was shown using both the IVW (OR = 1.21, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.90-1.62, P = 0.201) and MLE (OR = 1.20, 95% CI = 0.98-1.48, P = 0.083) methods. In an exploratory analysis of tumour subtype, an inverse relationship between 25(OH)D levels and glioblastoma (GBM) risk was identified using the MLE method (OR = 0.62, 95% CI = 0.43-0.89, P = 0.010), but not the IVW method (OR = 0.62, 95% CI = 0.37-1.04, P = 0.070). No statistically significant association was shown between 25(OH) D levels and non-GBM glioma. Our results do not provide evidence for a causal relationship between 25(OH) D levels and all forms of glioma risk. More evidence is required to explore the relationship between 25(OH) D levels and risk of GBM.

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