Vitamin D Insufficiency and Deficiency in Chronic Kidney Disease Patients on Hemodialysis

Abstract

About one billion people in the world suffer from vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency. Moreover, many data points indicate that vitamin D insufficiency and deficiency are highly prevalent among patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) or undergoing dialysis. This study aimed to evaluate the level of vitamin D for dialysis patients at the Tripoli dialysis and treatment center. In this single center observational study, hospitalized dialysis patients who were diagnosed of Stage 5 CKD and healthy (control) groups had taken measurement of serum 25(OH)D in the Tripoli dialysis and treatment center. In this regard, One hundred and four patients were included in this study, of which (37%) were in Vitamin D insufficiency state while (30%) were in Vitamin D deficiency state. For the comparison between vitamin D levels among dialysis patients and control group which revealed that there were no significant differences between them with a p-value of 0.094. Furthermore, the correlation between serum 25 (OH) vitamin D, creatinine, PTH, and urea showed that there was a weak negative correlation between serum vitamin D and creatinine (r = -0.364, p = 0.255), between vitamin D and PTH (r = -0.378, p = 0.226), and between vitamin D and urea (r = -0.347, p = 0.269). Obviously, although vitamin D deficiency is strongly linked to kidney failure, the tests that work for this disease are limited, so introducing vitamin D for dialysis patients with CKD helps in understanding the patient's condition and helps in disease management.