Levels of vitamin D in tuberculosis and comparison of vitamin D level in severe variant of tuberculosis like tubercular meningitis, miliary tuberculosis, disseminated tuberculosis with non severe variant of tuberculosis like pulmonary tuberculosis, tubercular lymphadenitis etc in paediatric age group

Abstract

Background: Tuberculosis is deadliest disease killing nearly 2 million people every year. Before the etiologic cause of TB was determined by Koch, cod liver oil and sunlight, both sources of vitamin D, were used in treatment of tuberculosis. After discovery of antibiotics, anti-infectious value of vitamin D was ignored until increasing cost of antibiotics and rise in resistance led to the need to search for alternative and antibiotic-independent therapeutic strategies. This study shed light on vitamin D, which is very safe and inexpensive by adding vitamin D to antibiotic treatment, immune system can be boosted to help body to clear TB, rather than relying on antibiotics.Methods: A prospective, observational, comparative study in which 62 TB patients were taken and vitamin D level were estimated.Results: The results of study show that out of total 62 patients, 31 (50.00%) had deficient(<20ng/ml) vitaminD,23(37.10%) had insufficient(20-30ng/ml) vitamin D, 8(12.90%) had sufficient (>30ng/ml) vitamin D level. Out of 62 patients, 10(62.13%) had severe variety of TB and 52(83.87%) had nonsevere TB. Among the 52 patients, 24(46.2%) had deficient vitamin D, 20(38.5%) had insufficient vitamin D and 8(15.4%) had sufficient vitamin D. Among the 10 patients with severe TB, 7(70.00%) had deficient vitamin D, 3(30.00%) had insufficient vitamin D and none had sufficient vitamin D level.Conclusions: Majority of children with tuberculosis demonstrated low serum levels of vitamin D (deficient and insufficient levels) suggest that vitamin D deficiency is risk factor of tuberculosis and very low levels of vitamin D were noted in severe variant of TB then non severe suggest that in severe form of tuberculosis vitamin D levels were less compared to nonsevere variant.