Bone loss and vitamin D deficiency in children undergoing hematopoietic cell transplantation.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) may be detrimental to bone health and vitamin D status in children.

The researchers conducted a prospective, multicenter cohort study to identify changes in bone health markers during the first 100 days after allogeneic HCT in 26 children.

Who Took Part

The study group was 26 children.

The age groups tagged for this paper are children and teenagers, men only.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and multicenter study.

The children were allocated by chance, so the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Blinding on both sides kept the children and researchers unaware of who received Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

More than one site took part, so the children came from several places.

Bone mineral density (BMD), bone mineral content (BMC), and serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) concentrations were measured at baseline, 30 days, and 100 days after HCT.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Age Factors, Allografts, Bone Density, Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation, Osteoporosis, Sex Factors and Vitamin D.

The authors tagged it with the keywords bone demineralization and hematopoietic cell transplantation.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and multicenter study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in 26 children.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2015 (Pediatric blood & cancer), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, all human trials.