Objective:

Vitamin D deficiency is known to have important effects on the musculoskeletal system, immune system and many other mechanisms, and vitamin B12 deficiency has different effects on several mechanisms and various diseases, especially neurocognitive functions. Therefore, the levels of these vitamins must be within the desired limits in children in the rapid development stage. Our objective in this study was to investigate vitamin D and vitamin B12 levels in children aged 1 month to 14 years who were hospitalized with a lower respiratory tract infection.

Methods:

A total of 103 patients with lower respiratory tract infection diagnoses between January 2018 and April 2018 at Bahçelievler State Hospital, Department of Pediatrics were included in this study. In the study conducted with 103 children aged between 1 month and 14 years without any chronic or systemic diseases, patients whose cases were examined for values of serum 25 (OH) vitamin D and vitamin B12, were evaluated retrospectively.

Results:

The study was carried out between January 2018 and April 2018 at Bahçelievler State Hospital Children’s Clinic with a total of 103 children, 38.8% (n=40) of whom were female and 61.2% (n=63) were male. The average in vitamin D measurements was 23.9±13.7 ng/mL. While 2.9% of the children had severe vitamin D deficiency, the vitamin D levels in 13.6% of children were deficient, and in 32.0% they were insufficient. The average in vitamin B12 measurements of the children was 301.7±153.8 pg/mL. Vitamin B12 levels of 51.5% of the children were found to be lower than the desired level. Moreover, vitamin B12 levels were not found to be statistically significant in association to the presence of vitamin D deficiency in children.

Conclusion:

Since 25 (OH) vitamin D deficiency, which is also known to have immunomodulatory effects, may be a risk factor in patients hospitalized due to infectious diseases, giving vitamin D replacement to patients who measure low in serum 25 (OH) vitamin D levels should be considered. Vitamin B12 deficiency is still considerably high in developing countries like our country. The fact that vitamin D deficiency and vitamin B12 deficiency are not statistically associated might be due to differences in their primary intake sources (sunlight and nutrition).

Keywords: 25 (OH) vitamin D, vitamin B12, pneumonia, children