Decreased circulating levels of free triiodothyronine in Sepsis children and correlation analysis

BACKGROUND: Intensive physical stress in sepsis can induce the disorder of endocrine function and impact the clinical course and prognosis. Low T3 syndrome has been verified to be the predictive indicator of poor prognosis in several researches. Reports on the influence factors of thyroid hormonal levels in children with severe sepsis are rare. We aim to investigate the thyroid hormonal variations in the course of sepsis and analyze that how to be affected by clinical data and inflammatory biomarkers. METHODS: In the case-control study, 184 children with sepsis and 323 controls were included in Tongji Hospital, Wuhan, China, in 2019. Data on clinical and inflammatory parameters were collected from all participants. Circulating FT3(Free Triiodothyronine) levels were measured by Electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. Finally, we investigated the correlation between FT3 and related variables with linear regression analysis. RESULTS: Serum FT3 was lower in the sepsis group than in control group(2.59 + 1.17 vs 2.83 + 1.01 pg/mL, p < 0.05). Significant moderately negative correlations(|r| > 0.3) of FT3 levels with ferritin, PCT, duration of symptoms, SOFA score, and mortality were revealed. Moreover, we observed that FT3 had the positive correlation with albumin, as well as white blood cell count. CONCLUSIONS: Concentrations of serum FT3 are dramatically declined in sepsis children than in control children. Our results demonstrate that recognizing the potential abnormality of thyroid hormones in sepsis patients and examine timely through abnormal common clinical data and inflammatory biomarkers is a fine option.