Assessment of Vitamin D status in patients attending tertiary care hospital in Northern Andhra Pradesh with musculoskeletal pain

Abstract

Introduction: vitamin D deficiency involve the musculoskeletal system leading toproximal muscle weakness, bone pain, and osteomalacia which is largely unrecognized by bothphysicians and patients.The prevalence of vitamin D (<20ng/dl) deficiency among patients attending the orthopedic outpatient department in tertiary care hospital with complaints of non-specific symptoms of body pain and low back pain without any other co morbid condition is our study.

Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted among 468 adult patients above the age 20 yearsattending orthopedic department of a tertiary care hospital with non-specific complaints of general body pain/back pain/tiredness/weakness on working and walking with no other symptoms such as injury,fever, GIT problems or known medical illness and no relief of the pain symptoms with routine treatments with analgesics and rest and physiotherapy were screened for Vitamin D levels when other routine test such as complete blood count, ESR, BI, sugar, RFT were normal.

Results: out of 468 patients tested, 386 (82.4%) of the study population had below normal vitamin D, of them 49.1% had deficiency, 33.3% had insufficiency and 17.5% had sufficient vitamin D level. The proportion of patients Vitamin D deficiency is higher in the age group 30-59 whereas insufficiency was higher in the age group 20-39 compared to other age group and it was found statically significant.