Serum vitamin D3 deficiency among cases with extensive tinea corporis infection

Abstract

<p><strong>Background:</strong> Abnormal serum vitamin D3 levels have been implicated as risk factors for development of various skin disorders. Hence this study was planned to assess the prevalence of vitamin D3 deficiency among patients with <em>Tinea corporis</em> who were attending outpatient department of dermatology in a tertiary care centre.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The cross sectional study was conducted by the department of dermatology, venereology and leprosy, at Sri Muthukumaran Medical College Hospital and Research Institute, among the patients attending the outpatient department, during the month of June to August 2019. A total of fifty cases with extensive <em>Tinea corporis</em> infection were included in the study. The study was conducted using a proforma with the detailed clinical history and also patients underwent skin scrapping for KOH mount and serum vitamin D3 analysis. Data was entered in Microsoft excel and data analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Among the cases with extensive <em>Tinea corporis</em> infection, only 20% of cases were found to have normal levels of serum vitamin D3 whereas 48.3% of cases were found to have serum vitamin D3 insufficiency and 31.7% of cases had deficiency of serum vitamin D3</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Screening for vitamin D3 deficiency for all cases with extensive <em>Tinea corporis</em> infection can be recommended. Further large scale clinical trials are needed to assess whether vitamin D3 deficiency has any role to play in pathogenesis and treatment of extensive <em>Tinea corporis</em> infection.</p>