Serum Vitamin D Level in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and its Relation with Severity: A Single Centre Study

IntroductionChronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a public health problem of epidemic proportion. Several studieshave shown low serum vitamin D levels in patients with COPD. The aim of this study was to compare serumvitamin D level in patients with Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Diseases (GOLD) COPD stage II, IIIand IV with controls and correlate serum vitamin D level with severity of COPD.MethodsA cross sectional study was conducted from June 2014 to November 2015 at Tribhuvan University TeachingHospital (TUTH). A total of 154 subjects were enrolled for study that consisted of 77 cases of COPD and 77controls for comparison. Participants were taken from medical wards and outpatient department. COPD stagingwas done as per GOLD guidelines and stage II, III and IV were labeled as advanced COPD cases. Both descriptiveand inferential statistics were performed in SPSS version 20.ResultsStage II, III and IV COPD were 30%, 36% and 34% respectively. Mean serum vitamin D level was 15.16±7.19 ng/mlin COPD cases and 33.99±12.37 ng/ml in healthy controls showing statistically significant relation of low serumvitamin D in patients with advanced COPD (p <0.0001). Serum vitamin D was found to be in decreasing trendwith increasing severity of COPD.ConclusionPatients with advanced COPD (GOLD stage II, III and IV) had low serum vitamin D levels compared to normalpopulation and serum vitamin D level correlated with GOLD severity in Nepalese patients with COPD.KeywordsChronic obstructive pulmonary disease; global initiative for chronic obstructive lung diseases; vitamin D