Vitamin D Deficiency in a Cohort of Patients with Systemic Scleroderma from the South of Spain

We read with interest the work by Vacca, et al 1 , who concluded that vitamin D deficiency is very common in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). We studied the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency and its possible relation to different clinical manifestations of the disease and to bone mineral density (BMD), in a cohort of patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) from an autoimmune systemic disease unit in Southern Spain. We reviewed the clinical histories of 63 patients who attended our clinic between March and April 2009. Age, sex, height, weight, body mass index (BMI), years of development of disease, subtype of SSc, clinical manifestations, renal function tests, autoantibodies, type of treatment, vitamin D levels, t score, and z score were gathered from all patients. A t score of -1 SD defined osteopenia and -2.5 SD defined osteoporosis.