Journal of Blood Disorders & Transfusion

Vitamin D deficiency and its effect on hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipient

7^th World Hematologists Congress

May 08-09, 2017 Barcelona, Spain

Hawazen Alsaedi

King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Saudi Arabia

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Blood Disord Transfus

Abstract:

Vitamin D plays an important role in calcium metabolism and homeostasis. In addition to its role in calcium metabolism, vitamin D plays an important role as immunomodulator. Vitamin D receptor (VDR) is expressed on many cells including T, B and natural killer (NK). Vitamin D modulates both innate and adaptive immune response. Recently, vitamin D deficiency is linked to cancer, autoimmune diseases and graft versus host disease (GVHD). This study investigated the effect of vitamin D deficiency in 104 children who underwent hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) from 2012 to 2015. Vitamin D level was measured prior to HSCT and serial measurements after HSCT on days 30, 60, 100 and 365 days. We observed that low vitamin level below 30 ng/ ml is strongly associated with increased risk of relapse and decrease survival at day 100-post hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) p=0.04. Also, we observed a strong correlation between low vitamin D level and infections including fungal and CMV reactivation post HSCT p=0.004. To conclude, vitamin D plays an important role as immunomodulator; its deficiency may impact the outcome of patient undergoing HSCT. Optimizing nutritional supplementation is very important before transplantation and continues after HSCT.

Biography :

Email: halsaedi@kfshrc.edu.sa