Analysis of 25(OH)D Serum Concentrations of Hospitalized Elderly Patients in the Shanghai Area

OBJECTIVE: To find an association between basic characteristics, seasons as well as disease types and 25-Hydroxyvitamin D serum concentrations in Chinese patients. METHODS: We randomly selected 5470 Chinese patients with various diseases, who were hospitalized between May 2012 and August 2013 in Shanghai and analyzed their serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D2 (25 (OH)D2) and 25-Hydroxyvitamin D3 (25(OH)D3) concentrations with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) as well as their parathyroid hormone (PTH) and serum creatinine blood levels. The resulting data were analyzed by linear regression and variance analyses or multivariate analysis with covariance. RESULTS: The 25(OH)D serum concentrations were lowest in December. Among the subjects with a median age of 83.0±16.0, the median 25(OH)D2, 25(OH)D3 and total 25(OH)D serum concentrations were 1.00±1.80 ng/ml, 12.20±8.50 ng/ml and 14.80±9.80 respectively, indicating a prevalent 25(OH)D deficiency. According to our multivariate analysis of covariance, the factors affecting 25(OH)D2 and 25(OH)D3 serum concentrations included age, creatinine, PTH, season and type of disease, whereas gender correlated only with 25(OH)D2 and 25(OH)D2 and D3 values correlated negatively with each other. Our results further revealed that 25(OH)D3 levels were low while 25(OH)D2 levels were high among patients with lung diseases, dyskinesia and coronary heart diseases. In addition, participants with diabetes and cerebral infarction had higher 25(OH)D3 serum concentrations compared with lung disease patients. CONCLUSION: Vitamin D intake particularly during winter and summer seasons is important especially for elderly lung disease, dyskinesia and coronary heart disease patients to improve their quality of life.