Difficult to think about but easy to treat: scurvy
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Aynur Küçükçongar Yavaş
,
Ayşenur Engin Erdal
,
Ayşegül Neşe Çıtak Kurt
,
Tuba Kurt
Abstract
Objectives
Severe vitamin C deficiency, or scurvy, presents as a syndrome of multisystem abnormalities associated with defective collagen synthesis and antioxidative functions. The many clinical features of scurvy lead to frequent misdiagnoses, as they can often point to other diseases, such as vasculitis, venous thrombosis and musculoskeletal disorders. As such, an extensive workup is recommended in cases in which scurvy is suspected.
Case presentation
A 21-month-old male patient and a 36-month-old female patient presented with difficulty in walking, painful joint movements, irritability, gingival hypertrophy and bleeding. After exhaustive investigations and risky invasive procedures, vitamin C deficiency was diagnosed in both cases, and the symptoms improved dramatically with vitamin C treatment.
Conclusions
The importance of taking a dietary history in pediatric patients is highly recommended. In cases where scurvy is considered, serum ascorbic acid levels should be checked to confirm the diagnosis prior to conducting invasive tests.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the families of our patients.
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Research funding: No financial support received.
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Author contributions: Each author has agreed to be responsible for the complete manuscript’s content and has given their approval for submission.
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Competing interests: There are no declared conflicts of interest by the authors.
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Informed consent: In this case report, verbal informed consent was obtained from our patient’s family.
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Ethical approval: The case study was designated exempt from evaluation by the regional institutional review board.
References
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Review Article
- Molecular mechanisms involved in fetal programming and disease origin in adulthood
- Original Articles
- Neuropathy in paediatric type 1 diabetes mellitus – clinical characterization and analysis of risk factors in the diabetes prospective follow-up registry DPV (Diabetes-Patienten-Verlaufsdokumentation)-registry
- Effect of metabolic control on cognitive functions in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus
- Uric acid and sCD163 as biomarkers for metabolic dysfunction and MAFLD in children and adolescents with overweight and obesity
- Endocrinological, immunological and metabolic features of patients with Fabry disease under therapy
- Evaluation and management of pediatric thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer at a single institution after adoption of the American Thyroid Association 2015 guidelines
- Fasting ketone levels vary by age: implications for differentiating physiologic from pathologic ketotic hypoglycemia
- Association of adipocytokines and adipocytokine ratios with cardiovascular risk factors in Japanese preadolescents
- Daily vs. monthly oral vitamin D3 for treatment of symptomatic vitamin D deficiency in infants: a randomized controlled trial
- Short Communication
- Management and outcomes in secondary diabetes among pediatric patients hospitalized with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis
- Letter to the Editor
- Potential usefulness of assessing serum betamethasone levels during betamethasone therapy
- Case Reports
- Acquired idiopathic isolated ACTH deficiency with associated autoimmune thyroiditis in pediatrics: case report and review of the literature
- A very rare cause of hypertrygliseridemia in infancy: a novel mutation in glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase 1 (GPD1) gene
- Difficult to think about but easy to treat: scurvy
- Severe hypophosphataemia can be an early sign of osteopetrorickets: a case report
- Corrigendum
- Diagnosis of adrenal insufficiency in children: a survey among pediatric endocrinologists in North America
