Thyroid hormone concentrations in severely or critically ill patients with COVID-19.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

COVID-19 is a new coronavirus infectious disease. We aimed to study the characteristics of thyroid hormone levels in patients with COVID-19 and to explore whether thyroid hormone predicts all-cause mortality of severely or critically ill patients.

METHODS:

The clinical data of 100 patients with COVID-19, who were admitted to Wuhan Tongji Hospital from February 8 to March 8, 2020, were analyzed in this retrospective study. The patients were followed up for 6-41 days. Patients were grouped into non-severe illness and severe or critical illness, which included survivors and non-survivors. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards analysis was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for all-cause mortality in association with continuous and the lower two quartiles of thyroid hormone concentrations in severely or critically ill patients.

RESULTS:

The means of free T3 (FT3) were 4.40, 3.73 and 2.76 pmol/L in non-severely ill patients, survivors and non-survivors, respectively. The lower (versus upper) two quartiles of FT3 was associated with all-cause mortality HR (95% CI) of 9.23 (2.01, 42.28). The HR (95% CI) for all-cause mortality in association with continuous FT3 concentration was 0.41 (0.21, 0.81). In the multivariate-adjusted models, free T4 (FT4), TSH and FT3/FT4 were not significantly related to all-cause mortality. Patients with FT3 less than 3.10 pmol/L had increased all-cause mortality.

CONCLUSION:

FT3 concentration was significantly lower in patients with severe COVID-19 than in non-severely ill patients. Reduced FT3 independently predicted all-cause mortality of patients with severe COVID-19.

• Authors: W Gao, W Guo, Y Guo, M Shi, G Dong, G Wang, Q Ge, J Zhu, X Zhou
• Journal: Journal of endocrinological investigation (J Endocrinol Invest) Vol. 44 Issue 5 Pg. 1031-1040 (May 2021) ISSN: 1720-8386 [Electronic] Italy
• PMID: 33140379 (Publication Type: Journal Article)

Chemical References

• Thyroid Hormones
• Triiodothyronine

Topics

• Adult
• Aged
• Aged, 80 and over
• COVID-19 (blood, mortality)
• Cause of Death
• China (epidemiology)
• Comorbidity
• Critical Illness (mortality)
• Female
• Humans
• Male
• Middle Aged
• Predictive Value of Tests
• Proportional Hazards Models
• Retrospective Studies
• Survival Analysis
• Thyroid Function Tests
• Thyroid Hormones (blood)
• Triiodothyronine (blood)