الفهرس 
Bronchial AsthmaOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Asthma is the most common chronic disease among children where almost 90% of children are diagnosed by age of 6 years. Asthma prevalence has been increasing in both developed as well as developing countries.
Vitamin D deficiency is suggested to be a risk factor for asthma and associated with increased incidence of asthma symptoms. Vitamin D deficiency maybe due to decreased maternal intake during pregnancy, poor oral supplementation of vitamin D during childhood and restricted exposure to sunshine.
Many studies suggest that vitamin D may play a role in the pathogenesis of asthma, it has a potent immunomodulatory effect acting on the cells of the innate immunity. Vitamin D reduce the risk of respiratory viral infections which are important initiators of asthma exacerbations. Also it potentiate the anti-inflammatory action of steroids which is considered the most effective controller in asthma.
The aim of this study was to detect the prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency (<30ng/ml) and deficiency (<20ng/ml) among Egyptian asthmatic children and to correlate the relation between vitamin D levels and severity of asthma.
This study was conducted on 60 asthmatic children and adolescents (group 1). They were recruited from Chest Clinic in Ain Shams University Hospital their age ranged between 2-18 years with a mean age 8+4.2 years.
Forty healthy children and adolescents (group 2) were collected from the outpatient clinic as control group. They were selected to be age and sex matched for group one.
The studied children were diagnosed as asthmatic children, they were subjected to full medical history, thorough clinical examination lying stress on chest examination.
Also laboratory investigations including serum calcium, alkaline phosphatase and 25(OH) vitamin D were done for both cases and controls.
Analysis of the results showed that:
The patients were 38 (63.3%) males and 22 (36.7%) females with male to female ratio 1.7:1, thus asthma is more prevalent in males than females children.
There was no significant difference between patients and controls as regard weight and BMI.
The height was significantly lower in patients than controls.
The mean value of vitamin D was significantly lower in asthmatic children than controls. In asthmatic patients (45%) had vitamin D deficiency and (55.8%) insufficiency while controls had (37%) insufficiency and (62.5%) were sufficient.
The mean value of alkaline phosphatase was significantly higher in asthmatic children than controls
There was highly significant difference between deficiency of vitamin D and severity of asthma in between patients.
There was significant difference between decreased serum vitamin D levels and increased corticosteroid use in patients.
In asthmatic patients 30% had allergic rhinitis and the serum level of vitamin D was significantly lower in patients with allergic rhinitis.
There was no significant difference between lack of exposure to sun and deficiency of vitamin D.
The number of controller drugs was significantly increase with asthma severity.
There was no significant difference between patients as regard severity of asthma and bronchvascular marking in chest x-ray.
There was significant difference between patients as regard severity of asthma and hyper inflated chest in X-ray.
There was significant negative correlation between vitamin D and alkaline phosphatase serum levels.