Incidence rate and characteristics of symptomatic vitamin D deficiency in children: a nationwide survey in Japan.

Incidence rate and characteristics of symptomatic vitamin D deficiency in children: a nationwide survey in Japan. Endocr J. 2018 Mar 10;: Authors: Kubota T, Nakayama H, Kitaoka T, Nakamura Y, Fukumoto S, Fujiwara I, Hasegawa Y, Ihara K, Kitanaka S, Koyama S, Kusuda S, Mizuno H, Nagasaki K, Oba K, Sakamoto Y, Takubo N, Shimizu T, Tanahashi Y, Hasegawa K, Tsukahara H, Yorifuji T, Michigami T, Ozono K Abstract There is concern that vitamin D deficiency is prevalent among children in Japan as well as worldwide. We conducted a nationwide epidemiologic survey of symptomatic vitamin D deficiency to observe its incidence rate among Japanese children. A questionnaire inquiring the number of new patients with vitamin D deficiency rickets and/or hypocalcemia for 3 years was sent to 855 randomly selected hospitals with a pediatrics department in Japan. In this survey, we found that 250 children were diagnosed with symptomatic vitamin D deficiency. The estimated number of patients with symptomatic vitamin D deficiency per year was 183 (95% confidence interval (CI): 145-222). The overall annual incidence rate among children under 15 years of age was 1.1 per 100,000 population (95% CI: 0.9-1.4). The second survey has provided detailed information on 89 patients with symptomatic vitamin D deficiency under 5 years of age in hospitals in the current research group. The nationwide and second surveys estimated the overall annual incidence rate of sympto...
Source: Endocrine Journal - Category: Endocrinology Tags: Endocr J Source Type: research