Prevalence of Vitamin-D deficiency is related to severity of liver damage in Hepatitis-C patients

Vitamin-D deficiency in liver damage

Abstract

Objective: Serum Vitamin-D plays pivotal role in inflammatory and infectious diseases; among them liver infections are more distinct. This study was aimed to determine Vitamin-D status in HCV-infected patients and healthy controls in Faisalabad, Pakistan.

Methods: We performed randomized cross-sectional study of 74 individuals from 20th August, 2017 to 20th February 2018 at The University of Faisalabad and Dar us Shifa Clinic, Faisalabad. Fifty-one patients were hepatitis C RNA-PCR positive (22 compensated cirrhotic and 29 decompensated cirrhotic patients). In addition, 23 subjects without liver disease were recruited as healthy control. HCV RNA–PCR was performed by ARTUS ® HCV QS-RGQ V1. Vitamin-D levels were measured by chemiluminescence. SPSS version 20 was used for statistical analysis.

Results: The mean level of Vitamin-D was significantly lower in HCV patients in compensated and decompensated cirrhotic patients (26.85 ng/mL & 20.65 ng/mL respectively) as compared to healthy controls (30.41 ng/mL). This study showed sub optimal level of Vitamin-D in 76.5% of HCV patients. Vitamin-D insufficiency (21-29 ng/mL) as prevalent among healthy individuals (47.8%) as well as in HCV patients (39.2%) (P < 0.001). In addition, Vitamin-D levels showed inverse relationship with more severe conditions of liver disease as 55.2% of decompensated cirrhosis patients were sufferer of Vitamin-D deficiency as compared to 13.6% deficiency of Vitamin-D in compensated cirrhotic group (P <0.0001).

Conclusion: Suboptimal levels of Vitamin-D (deficiency or insufficiency) are prevalent in patients having hepatitis C infection as compared to healthy controls. Deficiency of Vitamin-D was directly associated with severity of disease.

doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.3.1490

How to cite this:
Falak S, Aftab L, Saeed M, Islam A. Prevalence of Vitamin-D deficiency is related to severity of liver damage in Hepatitis-C patients. Pak J Med Sci. 2020;36(3):445-450. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.3.1490

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.