Correlation of VIT D3 and serum ferritin levels in anemic patients in a hospital based study.

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the correlation of Vit D3 levels with serum ferritin in patients with anemia. Study Design: Cross Sectional study. Setting: Department of Pathology, Qazi Hussain Ahmed Medical Complex Nowshera. Period: 5^th Jan 2019 to 31^st Dec 2020. Material & Methods: Data entered in SPSS 25^th version. Descriptive statistics was used for numerical variables. Pearson correlation was used for correlation of Vit D3 with gender. Normality of data was checked by Shapiro wilk test. Mann Whitney U test was used to show the difference of Vit D3 and ferritin levels in gender. Results: The total of 192 anemic patients with Hb<10g/dl as per definition of WHO¹ were referred for ferritin level estimation with 142(74%) females and 50(26%) males. Out of total, 47 were also advised with Vit D3 level estimation with 29(61.7%) females and 18(38.3%) males. Mean with standard deviation for age was 30+9.6 years. Mean with standard Error of mean of Vit D3 was (Mean-15.5ng/ml, SE 2.19). Mean with standard Error of mean of serum ferritin was (Mean-48.2ng/ml, SE 5.90). We observed 35(74.5%) cases out of 47, as Vit D3 deficient with a count less than 20 ng/ml. We observed that 118 (61.5%) were iron deficient with serum ferritin less than 15ng/ml. Person correlation showed a statistically significant correlation of Vit D3 with ferritin (p= 0.022, r=0.7). Spearman ranked correlation showed a statistically significant correlation between the categories of Vit D3 and ferritin (p=0.022, r=0.7). Mann Whitney U Test showed no significant difference in gender groups for botht the variables (p= 0.86 &p=0.33 respectively) thus retain the null hypotheses. Conclusion: The frequency of deficiency Vit D3<20ng/ml in anemic patients was 74% while that of ferritin<15ng/ml in anemic patients was 61.5%. There is a strong statistically significant correlation of Vit D3 with serum ferritin in anemic patients with Hb<11g/dl.