Is Supplementation Efficacious in Maintaining Adequate Plasma Levels of Vitamin A and E for Thalassemic Patients Undergoing Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation? A Cross-Sectional Study

Objective: thalassemia along with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (hsct) can lead to major oxidative stress. vitamins a and e are antioxidants which protect membrane from lipid peroxidation. we sought to determine for the first time, whether vitamins a and e supplementation is efficacious in maintaining or increasing plasma level of these vitamins in thalassemic children undergoing hsct. methods: a cross-sectional study was performed on 50 children with β-thalassemia major hospitalized for hsct. patients took a daily multivitamin. plasma vitamins a and e levels were measured at four different times: on admission, hsct day (day 0), day 7 and day 14 after hsct. findings: plasma vitamin a and e were abnormal on admission in most patients (62.0% and 60.0% respectively). ratio of patient with normal to abnormal plasma level of the vitamins improved from baseline to a peak on day 7 then deteriorated afterward until day 14. there was an increasingly positive correlation between daily oral intake and plasma vitamin a at different times, but plasma vitamin e showed inverse correlation at first which tended towards no correlation subsequently. in multivariate analysis, supplementation significantly changed plasma level of vitamin a at different measurement time (p=0.001) within study subjects. but, plasma level of vitamin e showed no significant difference (p=0.2). conclusion: our findings suggest that oral supplementation could have beneficial effects due to increasing plasma vitamin a level and preventing plasma vitamin e depletion.