Assessment of Correlation Between Costochondritis and Vitamin D Insufficiency in School-age Children

In children, vitamin D deficiency can result in the hypertrophy of costochondral junctions and sternal pain.

In this study, we aimed at determining the correlation between children’s vitamin D status and costochondritis.

This cross-sectional study included a control group (100 healthy children) and a study group (100 children with costochondritis). Examination of patients included chest radiography, physical examination, history-taking, electrocardiography, echocardiography, and serum measurement of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, phosphorus, calcium, and alkaline phosphatase. The Chisquare test, Spearman’s correlation test, and independent samples t-test were also performed for analyzing the data.

The groups showed no significant difference regarding age, gender, or body mass index (P = 0.315, P = 0.671, and P = 0.097, respectively). The history of patients experiencing idiopathic chest pain showed cardiac disease in 13% of their families, without report of death in the family. The pain was mainly located in the left precordium (64%), followed by the right precordium and the midsternal region (32% and 18%, respectively). A significantly lower level of 25-OHD was found in the study group than in the control group (P < 0.0001). Based on the findings, the groups were not significantly different regarding the evaluated biochemical parameters, except for alkaline phosphatase (P = 0.007). The results showed that pain duration and episodes were significantly associated with vitamin D insufficiency (r = -0.621, P = 0.002; r = -0.213, P = 0.021, respectively).

Vitamin D insufficiency should be considered in costochondritis. Also, pain duration and episodes have associations with vitamin D insufficiency. This finding emphasizes the necessity of evaluating nutritional parameters in children with non-cardiac chest pain.