FRACTURES
To find out the effect in increase in serum 25(OH) vitamin D levels aftersupplementation with 1000 IU/day of vitamin D in patients with low vitamin D levels and otherfactors which may affect the increase in vitamin D levels. Study Design: Retrospective study.Period: January 2013 and June 2014. Setting: Ch. Rehmat Ali Trust Teaching Hospital in theLahore. Methods: The study included patients > 50 years with a low-energy fracture and avitamin D level < 25 nmol/l. Results: 85 patients were included, mean basal 25(OH) vitamin Dlevel was 22 nmol/l. After a mean of 10 weeks, the mean increase in vitamin D was 49.5 nmol/l.Only 45.1% reached the target level of > 50 nmol/l. The increase was correlated with the basallevel of vitamin D (p < 0.05), and the time interval between the two vitamin D measurements(p < 0.05) and was inversely related to body weight (p < 0.05), but was not related to age,gender or renal function. Conclusions: We found that the generally recommended dosage of1000 IU of vitamin D per day resulted in suboptimal serum levels after ten weeks of treatment inmore than half of the patients. The increase in vitamin D levels was higher in patients with lowbody weight and in patients with very low basal vitamin D levels. These data suggest that thesepatients should initially be treated with higher dosages of vitamin D. If not possible, vitamin Dmeasurements should be performed after at least six months of supplementation with dosageadjustment.