Abstract
Background Bone profile in low birth weight (LBW) babies is important for monitoring of metabolic bone disease(MBD). MBD is a clinically heterogeneous group of disease with commonly reversible clinical presentation and manifestation when the underlying defect has been treated.
Objectives This study was aimed to find out biochemical profile in LBW babies and association between bone profile and gestational age of LBW.
Methods A cross-sectional descriptive study was done in all LBW infants at 8 weeks of age within one year period. Infants with less than 28 weeks of gestation, infants with insufficient perinatal records and those with suspicion of renal, hepatic, gastrointestinal and thyroid diseases were excluded.
Results Total 60 LBW (45 preterm and 15 small for gestational age, SGA) babies were included. Biochemical parameters of bone profile were shown in table 1. Sixteen babies (26.7%) were found MBD, comprising 68.7% of preterm and 31.3% of SGA infants. The mean serum calcium level was not statistically significant (table2) whereas mean serum phosphate and alkaline phosphatase levels were significantly different between low birth weight infants with MBD and those without MBD (table 3 & 4).
Conclusions MBD is more common in preterm babies than SGA babies. Serum calcium does not correlate well with gestational age of low birth weight infants where as serum phosphate and alkaline phosphatase have significant correlation. Diagnosis of MBD can be suspected on the abnormality of biochemical data, especially serum phosphate and alkaline phosphatase levels. Thus, measurement of biochemical bone profile has been recommended for early detection of MBD in high risk infants.
