Assessment of Vitamin D in Patients with Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura

Abstract

SUMMARY V itamin D is a true steroid hormone that has been found to have immunomodulatory effects. And its deficiency has been implicated in the pathogenesis of many of autoimmune diseases one of them is the immune thrombocytopenia. The purpose of this study was to assess vitamin D status in adult (≥18 year) patients with primary immune thrombocytopenia and to correlate it with response to first line treatment. To fulfill this task 40 ITP patients, 20 patients with thrombocytopenia due to other causes recruited from the Clinical Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. And 20 sex and age matched healthy subjects were taken as a control group. Vitamin D status was assessed by measurement of serum (25(OH) D) levels by ELISA for all patients and healthy control subjects. In this study mean 25(OH)D levels was significantly lower among ITP cases compared to a healthy control group, and inadequate 25(OH)D levels were present in 82.5% of ITP patients compared to 40% of a healthy control group. There were no statistically significant differences in vitamin D levels between responders ITP patients and non-responders ITP patients. And also no statistically significant differences was found in vitamin D levels between patients with thrombocytopenia due to non ITP causes and ITP patients.