Long-term epidemiological insights into rickets: a nationwide population-based retrospective study

Rickets is a growth disorder that imposes a global health burden and causes disability in affected children. However, issues related to the clinical epidemiology and mortality risk of nutritional versus hereditary rickets have not been fully investigated in large population studies, particularly in Asia.

This study aimed to investigate the nationwide incidence, demographic characteristics, and mortality-related risk factors of pediatric rickets stratified by nutritional and hereditary subtypes.

This study utilized data of subjects aged 0-18 years taken from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database. The database includes records of 31,488,321 individuals from January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2018. We analyzed all cases and conducted subgroup analyses of nutritional and hereditary rickets to examine how different etiologies affect the risk of mortality (ROM).

Among the 1,551 patients with rickets, nutritional rickets accounted for twice as many cases as hereditary rickets. Nutritional rickets primarily affects preschoolers without sex-based differences, whereas hereditary rickets is often diagnosed later with a male predominance. ROM in rickets is associated with a low household income, anemia, chronic kidney disease (CKD), hyperparathyroidism secondary to renal tubulopathy, and a prolonged length of hospital stay (LOS). Between 2012 and 2018, the overall incidence of rickets increased and the mortality rates decreased.

Increasing incidence and decreasing mortality rates of rickets were noted, suggesting improvements in clinical awareness and disease management. influencing ROM, such as family income, anemia, CKD, hyperparathyroidism secondary to renal tubulopathy, and LOS are important considerations in the clinical care of rickets.