The Effect of Vitamin D Supplementation for Bone Healing in Fracture Patients: A Systematic Review

Abstract

While most literature on vitamin D supplementation in fracture patients focuses on fracture prevention, the effect of vitamin D on bone healing is a much less studied concept. The primary aim of this systematic review was to assess whether vitamin D supplementation in fracture patients improves clinical or radiological union complications. The secondary aims were to assess supplementation effect on patient functional outcome scores and bone mineral density (BMD). A systematic search of all relevant articles was performed using the following databases: MEDLINE, Embase, Google Scholar, and Web of Science. The population selection included human patients with a fresh fracture treated conservatively or operatively. The intervention included any form of vitamin D supplementation, compared to no supplementation or a placebo. The primary outcomes assessed were clinical or radiological union rates or complications arising from the nonunion. The secondary outcomes assessed were functional outcome scores, BMD scores after treatment, and pain scores. A total of fourteen studies, assessing a total of 2734 patients, were included. Eight studies assessed the effect of vitamin D on clinical or radiological union. Five studies reported no significant difference in complication rates when supplementing fracture patients. Alternatively, three studies reported a positive effect with supplementation between the groups. One of these studies found a difference only for early orthopaedic complications (<30 days), but no differences in late complications. The other two studies found significant differences in clinical union; however, no changes were observed in radiological union. Six studies investigated functional outcome scores after supplementation. Four of these studies found no significant differences between most functional outcome scores. Only three studies reported BMD outcomes, one of which found limited effect on total hip BMD. The overall findings are that vitamin D alone does little to influence fracture healing and subsequent union rates or functional outcome. The studies suggestive of a positive effect were generally of a lower quality. Further high quality RCTs are needed to justify routine supplementation at the time of fracture.