Vitamin D supplementation improves treatment response in children with chronic immune thrombocytopenia

For this purpose, the researchers conducted a case-control study comprising 50 persistent and chronic ITP patients and 50 healthy controls. ELISA technique was deployed to determine 25 OH vitamin D levels.

The study revealed the following findings:

• VD median value was remarkably higher among the control group than the patients' group (28 versus 21.5).
• A severe deficiency was detected remarkably more among the patients' group than in the control group (24% vs 6%), respectively.
• Forty-four percent of complete responders belong to the sufficient VD category ((15/34) ~ 44%), representing all patients with sufficient VD status (n = 15).
• A positive correlation was observed between serum vitamin D and mean PLT count (r = 0.316).

"Our findings show that sufficient vitamin D may lead to better treatment response and less disease severity," the researchers wrote. "Vitamin D supplementation may be a new treatment option for children with chronic ITP."

Reference:

Mabrouk, R.E., Hussein, D.T., Abbas, M.E.E.R. et al. Sufficient vitamin D is favorable for children with persistent and chronic immune thrombocytopenia. Ann Hematol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00277-023-05210-9