Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: The important aspect of vitamin D (vitD) sufficiency is the impact of chronic diseases and medications, which disturb the metabolism of vitD. Bone pathology is common in diseases of the endocrine system, so the determining the status of vitD in various endocrine diseases and comparing it to otherwise healthy controls is of particular interest.

Materials and methods: The study included 16 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), 23 patients with primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT), 68 patients with Cushing’s disease (CD), and 22 patients with acromegaly. In selection of control group patients (n=163, 30M/133F; mean age 48.5±18 years) we used exclusion criteria: presence of primary hyperparathyroidism, secondary or tertiary hyperparathyroidism on the background terminal chronic renal failure, hypercortrosolism, blood creatinine level of more than 100 mmol/l or GFR <60 ml/min per 1.73 m², intake of active vitD metabolites within 1-month prior the blood test. Our lab takes part in the international program of external control and standardization of vitD in the blood (DEQAS, UK) and utilizes a total 25(OH)D (LIAISON, DiaSorin) assay.

Results: We observed a significantly lower levels of vitD in patients with T2DM (15.3 ng/ml), acromegaly (15.7 ng/ml), and CD (16.6 ng/ml) compared to a group of healthy patients (19.9 ng/ml). In patients with PHPT vitD levels were not statistically different from the control group.

Conclusions: The study shows a high prevalence of vitD deficiency not only in groups of patients with chronic diseases, but also in control patients. The absence of significant variations in the concentration of vitD in patients with PHPT may be due in part to the vitD supplementation in the treatment of osteoporosis, which is one of the main manifestations of the disease. Further research is needed to provide the reasons for the high prevalence of vitD deficiency described in endocrine diseases.