Chest
Original ResearchCritical Care MedicineNonthyroidal Illness Syndrome and Prolonged Mechanical Ventilation in Patients Admitted to the ICU
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
Our institutional review board approved the protocol. Considering that the retrospective nature of the investigation focused on aspects of our usual clinical practice, the informed consent was waived.
Results
Figure 1 shows the stratification of patients according to their serum thyroid hormone tests results. Over a period of 72 months, 5,285 patients were admitted to our ICU. In 866 of these patients, serum TSH, T3, and T4 levels were measured at least once during their ICU stay. Of these patients whose hormone levels were measured, 731 patients were approached for participation in the study; 135 patients were found not to be eligible because they had not received MV for > 24 h and/or they had not
Discussion
The main result of this study was that NTIS is associated with a PMV. It still remains controversial whether the NTIS represents a protective or a maladaptive response to illness6, 8, 11, 25, 26 and whether the tissues of patients with NTIS are chemically hypothyroid or euthyroid.2, 6, 11, 25, 26 As some authors have noted,2, 26 a more specific cellular marker for hypothyroidism than those actually available would be needed. Even though this condition has been considered for many years as a
Acknowledgment
We thank Dr. Vincenzo Tracuzzi for his contributions to data collection and processing.
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