We examined the survival prognosis of patients with osteosarcoma after orally administering the active form of vitamin D3, 1α (OH) D3 (αD3). The 29 patients, ranging in age from 9 to 58 years (mean, 19 years), with osteosarcoma were treated in our department between 1983 and 1995. The surgical stage was IIB in all patients. Among the 29 patients, αD3 was administered to 18 patients, and the remaining 11 patients served as controls. These patients underwent chemotherapy mainly with adriamycin and cisplatin, and wide tumor resection. In the αD3-treated group, the 5- or 10-year survival rate was 61.1%, while in the untreated group, the 5-year survival rate was 63.6%, and 10-year survival rate was 33.9%. Prognosis of the patients treated with αD3 tended to be better than that of untreated patients, but there was no significant difference in the survival rate between the groups (p=0.3823). The survival rate in the group treated with a total dose of αD3 more than 1,500 μg was also higher than that in the untreated group, but the difference was not significant (p=0.0740). Therefore, we concluded that αD3 at the dose used in this study was not effective in improving the prognosis of osteosarcoma patients.

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