Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 28, 2018; 24(4): 445-460
Published online Jan 28, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i4.445
Vitamin D deficiency and hepatitis viruses-associated liver diseases: A literature review
Nghiem Xuan Hoan, Hoang Van Tong, Le Huu Song, Christian G Meyer, Thirumalaisamy P Velavan
Nghiem Xuan Hoan, Le Huu Song, Institute of Clinical Infectious Diseases, 108 Military Central Hospital, Hanoi 10004, Vietnam
Nghiem Xuan Hoan, Christian G Meyer, Thirumalaisamy P Velavan, Molecular Genetics of Infectious Diseases, Institute of Tropical Medicine, University of Tübingen, Tübingen 72074, Germany
Nghiem Xuan Hoan, Hoang Van Tong, Le Huu Song, Christian G Meyer, Thirumalaisamy P Velavan, Vietnamese-German Center of Medical Research (VG-CARE), Hanoi 10004, Vietnam
Hoang Van Tong, Institute of Biomedicine and Pharmacy, Vietnam Military Medical University, Hanoi 10004, Vietnam
Christian G Meyer, Thirumalaisamy P Velavan, Medical Faculty, Duy Tan University, Da Nang, Vietnam
Author contributions: Meyer CG and Velavan TP shared senior authorship; Hoan NX, Tong HV, Song LH, Meyer CG and Velavan TP searched the publications, extracted data, summarized data in tables and discussed the literature and wrote the review; all authors approved the final version of this review.
Conflict-of-interest statement: We declare that we have no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Thirumalaisamy P Velavan, PhD, Professor, Molecular Genetics of Infectious Diseases, Institute of Tropical Medicine, University of Tübingen, Wilhelmstrasse 27, Tübingen 72074, Germany. velavan@medizin.uni-tuebingen.de
Telephone: +49-7071-2985981 Fax: +49-7071-294684
Received: November 28, 2017
Peer-review started: November 29, 2017
First decision: December 13, 2017
Revised: January 8, 2018
Accepted: January 16, 2018
Article in press: January 16, 2018
Published online: January 28, 2018
Core Tip

Core tip: Vitamin D deficiency is common and associated with chronic liver diseases. Several studies have ascribed a strong association of vitamin D insufficiency with unfavorable clinical courses and progression of liver disease in hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections. However, any causal relation is so far not fully understood. In addition, there are inconsistent results with regard to the impact of vitamin D supplementation on the virological response to IFN-based therapy; this applies particularly to HCV infections. The present review addresses general aspects of vitamin D deficiency and focuses on its association with HBV and HCV infection. Furthermore, the effects of vitamin D supplementation in combination with IFN-based therapy on the virological response in HBV and HCV infected patients are reviewed.