Evaluation of serum vitamin a levels in patients with Rhinitis

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to evaluate serum vitamin A levels in patients with rhinitis. A case control study concerned with 48 patients with rhinitis who underwent serum vitamin A evaluation and compared with the corresponding results of 100 apparently healthy persons as a control group. The study was carried out in Department of ENT in Al-Salam Teaching Hospital in Mosul, from April 2001 to June 2004. Vitamin A evaluation was performed in Department of Biochemistry in Mosul Medical College. The parameters analyzed included age, sex, clinical diagnosis and vitamin A measurement. The average age was 25 years with a range of 3-52 years. It was found that patients with rhinitis had significantly lower serum vitamin A levels than the control subjects. The levels were 0.292 +/- 0.099 [SD] micro mol/liter versus 0.886 +/- 0.199 [SD] micro mol/ liter, respectively. These findings prompted us to suggest a hypothesis that in rhinitis and possibly in other respiratory tract infections, a general derangement in vitamin A handling exists