BREAKING! COVID-19 Research: New Study Reveals That SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus Also Affects Thyroid Functions In Majority Of COVID-19 Patients
COVID-19 Research: A new research by researchers from Zhejiang University School of Medicine-China and The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang-China shows that The SARS-COV-2 coronavirus also affcets thyroid functions of a majority of COVID-19 patients.
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The study lead by Dr Lisong Teng had its research findings published on a preprint server and the paper is currently being peer-reviewed.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.15.20130807v1.full.pdf
The study involved 84 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine (Hangzhou, China) who were respectively enrolled in this study. In addition, 73 other patients with pneumonia and 819 healthy subjects were included as controls.
The researchers found that the levels of TT3 and TSH were lower in COVID-19 patients than control groups (p<0.001). Within the group of COVID-19 patients, 61.9% patients (52/84) presented with thyroid function abnormalities. We found a larger proportion of patients in severe condition exhibited thyroid dysfunction than mild/moderate cases (90.4% vs. 50.0%, p >< 0.001). Patients with thyroid dysfunction tended to have increased interval time for negative conversion of viral nucleic acid (14.1 ± 9.4 vs. 10.6 ± 8.3 days, p = 0.088). To note, thyroid dysfunction was also associated with decreased lymphocytes (p < 0.001) and increased CRP (p = 0.002).
In 7 patients with dynamic changes of thyroid function, the ersearchers observed the levels of TT3 and TSH gradually increased and reached normal range without thyroid hormone replacement at Day 30 post-admission. The correlation between TT3 and TSH level seemed to be positive rather than negative in the early stage, and gradually turned to be negatively related over time.
The research team concluded that thyroid function abnormalities are common in COVID-19 patients, especially in severe cases.
This might be caused by SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus attack and damage to the thyroid-pituitary axis.
The researchers suggest that more attention should be paid to thyroid function during treatment of COVID-19, and close follow-up is also needed after discharge.
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