Vitamin D levels are prognostic factors for connective tissue disease associated interstitial lung disease (CTD-ILD)

Vitamin D deficiency was associated with CTD-ILD and reduced lung function. We sought to confirm that lower Vitamin D level would be related to shorter survival times.

The CTD-ILD patients had lower Vitamin D level(P<0.05). Among patients with CTD-ILD who have improved lung function after treatment, elevation of Vitamin D level was positively associated with ΔFVC (%), ΔFEV1(%) and ΔDLCO-SB (%). The median survival time of patients with high serum 25(OH)D level was significantly longer than the patients with low 25(OH)D level group (16.5 months vs14.0 months, P=0.007). The Vitamin D was identified as an independent prognostic factor with a hazard ratio of 0.869 (95% CI 0.772-0.977, P =0.019).

Vitamin D level was lower in patients with CTD-ILD and associated with poor prognosis. Continuous levels of Vitamin D may be an important serum biomarker of prognosis.

85 CTD-ILD patients, 71 Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) patients and 78 healthy control patients were included in the study. In the subgroup analysis, the CTD-ILD patients were divided into anti-MDA5 antibody-positive group and anti-MDA5 antibody-negative group according to the serum autoantibodies results. The survival analysis evaluated effect of Vitamin D level on disease prognosis.