Publication:

Association of low serum vitamin D level among pulmonary tuberculosis patients

Background Recent studies suggest that the incidence and severity of tuberculosis is associated with low levels of Vitamin D, this is especially important in developing countries like India which carries a major portion of global Tuberculosis burden. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the prevalence of Vitamin D deficiency in newly diagnosed tuberculosis patients in our institute. Aims and objective is to study the deficiency of Vitamin D In newly diagnosed sputum positive pulmonary TB and to compare the level of Vitamin d with that of age matched healthy control population.

Methods This was a descriptive cross-sectional case control study to asses Vitamin D deficiency among 140 cases which included 2 categories of patients (a) Group 1: 70 sputum AFB positive newly diagnosed pulmonary TB patients, (b) Group 2: 70 apparently healthy people who came to the hospital with regular checkup.

Results Mean age of study groups and control in years were, Control: 40.3857±10.231, Cases: 36.885±11.076. Mean BMI was significantly higher in controls when compared with new TB cases (19.27±2.455 vs 15.215±1.774) kg/m2 p <0.05).There was significant decrease in mean Vitamin D3 value when new cases TB patients were compared with controls (18.212±9.3027 vs 36.1267±8.410 p <0.05).

Conclusions Patients with tuberculosis are significantly Vitamin D deficient as compared to normal people. This deficiency is more marked in females and those with low BMI. The present finding favours the role of Vitamin D in the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis in developing countries like India.