PhD candidate ‘Vitamin D and bladder cancer outcomes’

We are looking for an enthusiastic PhD candidate for a project on vitamin D in relation to bladder cancer recurrence and quality of life, financed by the Wereld Kanker Onderzoek Fonds (WKOF), as part of the World Cancer Research Fund International grant programme. Will you join our team?

Patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer have a relatively good survival but are at high risk of tumour recurrence. After diagnosis, they are subjected to a burdensome treatment and follow-up program. This may have a great impact on their quality of life. Whether lifestyle-related factors can reduce the risk of recurrence and improve quality of life in this patient group is largely unknown. Higher vitamin D concentrations have been associated with lower risk of recurrence and mortality and better quality of life in patients with several cancer types, but studies in patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer are scarce.

In this project, you will investigate how plasma vitamin D concentrations at 3 and 15 months after diagnosis are related to risk of recurrence and quality of life in patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer. You will also examine associations of genetic variants in vitamin D-related genes with recurrence risk. In addition, you will explore whether associations of vitamin D concentrations with risk of recurrence and quality of life differ for patients with different clinical characteristics, lifestyle factors or genetic variants of vitamin D-related genes.

This project will be conducted within the framework of our multicenter cohort study UroLife , currently including about 1500 patients with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). This project will be conducted in collaboration with the Division of Human Nutrition and Health, Wageningen University & Research and the Department of Urology, Radboudumc.

Tasks and responsibilities

• Data cleaning and management of questionnaire, biomarker and clinical data.
• Performing statistical analyses to answer the research questions.
• Writing scientific publications, resulting in a PhD thesis.
• Presenting results at (inter)national conferences.