Affiliation:
1. Necip Fazıl City Hospital, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit
2. Mustafa Kemal University, Department of Pediatrics
Abstract
Objective: It is suggested that vitamin D regulates the immune response in infectious and autoimmune diseases. In our study, we aimed to compare vitamin D levels in pediatric patients with severity of COVID-19 disease and a healthy control group.
Material and Methods: Retrospectively, we compared the serum vitamin D levels in patients between 1 month and 18 years of age who were followed up with the diagnosis of COVID-19 in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and pediatric ward of Necip Fazıl City Hospital with as a control group healthy children who outpatient between March 2020 and November 2020.
Results: Fifteen pediatric patients hospitalized in the COVID PICU and 25 pediatric patients hospitalized in the COVID pediatric service and 40 children in the healthy control group were included. Vitamin D level in PICU was found to be lower than inward median (min-max) was 11.69 (3-27) ng/mL vs 20.8 (6.3-36.8) ng/mL (p=0.005).
Conclusion: In our study, we showed that vitamin D deficiency may be a risk factor for having severe COVID-19 disease. Vitamin D supplementation can help the treatment of severe clinical disease COVID-19 by balancing the immune system and response to infection.
Publisher
Kirikkale Universitesi Tıp Fakultesi Dergisi