Background: Otitis media with effusion (OME) is the most common cause of hearing loss in children, its claimed that Vitamine D deficiency may have a role
Objectives: to assess the role of vitamin D deficiency in otitis media with effusion.
Patients and Methods: this study included 150 children with OME aged 3 to 14 years, Vitamin D level was assessted to all patients compared to Vitamin D level of 50 healthy volunteers. All patients with OME were received medical treatment for two weeks and followed up for three months. Then divided into two groups; A1 (120) respond to medical treatment and A2 (30) not respond to medical treatment. Vitamin D levels were compared to these two subgroups and compared to group B ( healthy volunteers).
Results: 135 patients of OME had mild conductive hearing loss , and 15 had moderate conductive hearing loss in comparison to those healthy volunteers with normal hearing with higly statistically significant difference.Both groups of OME had significantly low Vitamin D level in comparison to healthy volunteers.group A1 the mean Vitamine D level was (11.4 ± 9.8) which is significantly higher than that in group A2 (7.1 ± 5.4).Parathyroid hormone (PTH): was 35.8 ± 19.7 in group A1, (47.8 ± 24.7) in group A2 and (47.8 ± 24.7) in group B with highly statistically significant difference.
Conclusion: OME patients had significantly lower Vitamin D levels with in comparison with normal volunteers which indicate that supplementation of vitamin D may reduce incidence of OME.