A case of infantile scurvy treated only with vitamin C: A forgotten disease

Scurvy is a rare disease occurring because of a nutritional deficiency of vitamin C. In the paediatric age group the disease is usually characterized by musculoskeletal manifestations. Treatment is straightforward and consists of vitamin C administration. However, if the patient is left untreated, scurvy may be life-threatening. We report here the case of a 16-month-old infant with scurvy. After proper treatment, the complaints disappeared in a very short time period and the boy grew up as a completely normal child during the 12 years follow-up. Nowadays only few physicians have experience with this disease, and ascorbic acid deficiency can thus easily be overlooked. With this paper we aimed to remind of the efficacy of vitamin C administration for patients with scurvy.