Vitamin D deficiency and length of pediatric intensive care unit stay: a prospective observational study

Background Due to the limited data available in the pediatric population and lack of interventional studies to show that administration of vitamin D indeed improves clinical outcomes, opinion is still divided as to whether it is just an innocent bystander or a marker of severe disease. Our objective was therefore to estimate the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in children admitted to intensive care unit (ICU) and to examine its association with duration of ICU stay and other key clinical outcomes.