Vitamin D status in hospitalized patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Vitamin D deficiency and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are both world-wide health problems. Vitamin D has known to be important in infectious pathologies. However, there are conflicting results in the role of vitamin D in COPD exacerbation. This study was design to evaluate the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among patients with COPD exacerbation in relation with surrogate markers of exacerbation and long-term mortality in hospitalized patients with COPD.

117 hospitalized COPD patients were included between January 2010 to June 2013. Information was obtained through the patients' records and the electronic database of the hospital. The patients who had on vitamin D and/or calcium therapy, and who were suspected of asthma were excluded from the study.

The study included 117 patients and none of them were on vitamin D replacement on entry. The mean age was 67.95 ± 9.8 years. The number of male/female patients was 104/13. The mean forced expiratory volume in one second in percent predicted (FEV1%) was 39.97 ± 18.45. One hundred fifteen patients had vitamin D deficiency whereas only two patients had vitamin D ≥ 30 ng/dL. Seventy nine (69.5%) of the patients had severe vitamin D deficiency (< 10 ng/dL). The percentage of frequent exacerbators, patients who had microorganism growth and the median duration of hospital stay, mean FEV1 and survival did not differ between the group of vitamin D < or ≥ 10 ng/dL. There was no meaningful correlation of vitamin D level and any of the surrogate markers of exacerbation.

Severe vitamin D deficiency is heavily prevalent in Turkish COPD patients. However, it did not have an association on exacerbation and long term survival.