The Effect of Vitamin D Repletion in Patients With Hepatocellular Carcinoma on the Orthotopic Liver Transplant List

Potential participants will be identified from Mount Sinai Hospital's active liver transplant list. The hepatologists at Mount Sinai's Transplant Institute will ask each potential participant if she/he is interested in participating. If the patient expresses an interest in the study, one of the researchers will meet with the patient when the patient is at Mount Sinai for a regular appointment and will describe the study to the potential participant. If a patient continues to be interested in participating, she/he will be given a copy of the IRB-approved consent document to read. The consent document will be used as a guide for explaining the study in detail to the patient. If the patient's preferred language is Spanish, she/he will be given a consent document in Spanish and the study will be explained in Spanish.

Once the subject's 25(OH)D level is known, if the subject's 25(OH)D level is ≤ 15 ng/ml, the participant will be contacted by one of the investigators on the research team and instructed to begin taking 2 tablets per day (4000 IU total) of vitamin D. If the subject's 25(OH)D level is greater than 15 and ≤ 25, the participant will be contacted by one of the investigators on the research team and told to begin taking 1 tablet (2000 IU total) per day of vitamin D. If the participant's vitamin D level is < 25 ng/ml, they are considered Vitamin D insufficient/deficient. If the Serum Vitamin D is > 25 ng/ml they will be informed that they are not to take any vitamin D and they will be followed as controls for this study.