Effects of zinc supplementation on clinical outcomes in patients receiving radiotherapy for head and neck cancers: a double-blinded randomized study.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

To evaluate the impact of zinc supplementation on the survival of patients after receiving radiotherapy for head and neck cancers.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 50 patients taking part.

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Patients were randomly divided into two groups; experimental and control.

The 50 patients in each group could be considered homogenous with respect to medical histories, tumor characteristics, and therapeutic details.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled.

Because people in this Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

As a double-blind Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc could be set against what happens without it.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Analysis of Variance, Disease-Free Survival, Head and Neck Neoplasms, Neoplasm Recurrence, Local and Zinc.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in 50 patients.

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2008 (International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, all human trials.