3.1. Study Population
digestive tract cancers, adenocarcinoma
SQUAMOUS CELL CARCINOMA, ADENOCARCINOMA
A total of 417 patients with digestive tract cancers were initially randomized to receive either vitamin D supplements (n = 251, 60%) or placebo (n = 166, 40%). Importantly, one patient in the vitamin D group was lost to follow-up (drop-out rate, 0.2%). However, serum samples could not be obtained from seven patients (vitamin D group: 3, placebo group: 4). Additionally, 113 serum samples were completely depleted for use in another study (vitamin D group: 66, placebo group: 47), and three patients were excluded due to having pathologies other than adenocarcinoma or squamous cell carcinoma (vitamin D group: 1, placebo group: 2). As a result, the ELISA results for serum sCD40L were available for 294 (70.5%) of the original AMATERASU trial participants (vitamin D group: 181 (72.1%), placebo group: 113 (68.1%)) (