Safia Rehma, Naveed Sharif, Samiyah Rahman.
Frequency of vitamin d deficiency and hypocalcemia in patients presented with low back pain in tertiary care hospital Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
J Med Sci Jan ;28(1):42-5.

Background: Vitamin D is a prohormone and responsible for various functions such as balance of serum calcium levels, regulation of immune system and anti-inflammatory activities. Among other factors, serum Vitamin D level imbalance is also considered as important factor in pathogenesis of low backache. Objective: To determine the frequency of Vitamin D deficiency and hypocalcaemia in patients of lower backache. Material and methods: This descriptive cross sectional study was carried out in 182 patients with low backache for less than month duration. The study duration was from January 2018 to December 2018 at Khyber Teaching hospital, Peshawar. Non probability consecutive sampling technique was used. After selection of patients as per inclusion and exclusion criteria, an informed consent was took from the patients. The demographic and clinical findings were recorded on a pre-designed Performa. The serum from patients` blood was separated and analyzed for vitamin D and serum calcium on eletro-chemilu-minescence based immunoassay. Results: The mean age of patients included in study was 48.2 years (SD+-15.7) with a range of 9 to 76 years. Out of 182 pa-tients, 64% were male and 36% were female. The age groups of 16 to 45 years and >45 years, were almost equally suffered from low back pain i.e. 53% and 44% respectively. Hypocalcaemia was present in 26 (15%) patients with low back pain while 154(85%) patients have normal serum calcium levels. Most of the patients have sub-optimal level of vitamin D with 20(11%) patients having deficient levels of vitamin D, out of which 6(3%) were male and 14(8%) were female. Similarly 132(74%) pa-tients have insufficient level of vitamin D, having 29% male and 45% female patients with complaint of low backache while 28(15%) have normal levels of vitamin D, having 4% male and 11% female. On comparison, the results of serum levels of vitamin D and calcium were statistically insignificant. Conclusion: The deficiency of Vitamin D and hypocalcaemia is present in most of the patients and mainly affecting female gender. It is a contributing factor to idiopathic low back pain, the cause of which must be identified and dealt with.

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