Rapid vs Maintenance Vitamin D Supplementation in Deficient Children With Asthma to Prevent Exacerbations.

Background: Whether vitamin D reduces clinically important exacerbations of childhood asthma remains uncertain. We compared rapid to maintenance vitamin D repletion analyzed by baseline vitamin D level.

Methods: Children presenting to the ED with moderate-to-severe asthma exacerbations and vitamin D levels ≤ 25 ng/mL underwent masked randomization, and then open dosing to either IM+oral (the latter daily) therapy or daily oral-only therapy, and were followed for 12 months.