Well-conducted clinical trials have demonstrated that vitamin D supplementation reduces cancer mortality and enhances survival of colorectal cancer patients in particular. Vitamin D supplementation could therefore be a promising approach for supportive cancer therapy, but the underlying mechanisms of action of vitamin D are only partially understood. Also, all previous clinical trials applied uniform doses of vitamin D, without paying attention to the strongly divergent needs of patients according to their baseline vitamin D status and weight. The coordinator of this project currently conducts a new clinical trial funded by the World Cancer Research Fund, called VICTORIA, which will, for the first time, evaluate the impact of a personalized vitamin D supplementation (PEVIDS) dose on adverse health outcomes among 456 colorectal cancer patients, of whom half will receive PEVIDS and half placebo (which is no active drug).

In the DKTK funded PEVIDS project, we will assess the impact of PEVIDS on several important molecules of the immunome (sum of all immunologically active molecules) and proteome (sum of all proteins) of colorectal cancer patients in multiple biomaterials (blood, urine, and stool) to identify potential mechanisms of PEVIDS effects. The research will be conducted in interdisciplinary collaboration by researchers from three DKTK sites with complementary expertise in cancer prevention, immunology, and proteome analyses.