Relationship between serum thyroid hormone level and severity of cirrhosis

Objective To explore the relationship between serum thyroid hormone level and severity of cirrhosis, complications and liver function in patients with liver cirrhosis. Methods A total of 121 patients with cirrhosis who were admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from January 2018 to December 2018 were selected as the cirrhosis group, and they were classified by Child-Pugh classification.And 101 healthy subjects were selected as the control group. Thyroid hormone level and liver function was detected in all the study objects. Serum thyroid hormone levels were compared between control group and cirrhosis group, among every subgroups of cirrhosis group, between cirrhosis complication group and non-complication group. The correlation between liver function and thyroid hormone level was also studied. Results The level of serum free triiodothyronine (FT3) in patients with cirrhosis was significantly lower than that in the control group, and the level of FT3 decreased gradually with the increase of Child-Pugh classification (P<0.01). FT3 levels of the patients complicated by ascites, hepatic encephalopathy or esophageal/gastric varices bleeding were lower than those without complications (P<0.01). FT3 was negatively correlated with alanine aminotransferase and serum total bilirubin (r= -0.21, -0.478; P<0.05); however FT3 was positively correlated with serum albumin (ALB)and cholinesterase (CHE, r=0.599, 0.326 respectively, P<0.05); serum free thyroxine (FT4) was negatively correlated with ALB, and CHE (r = -0.231, -0.292 ; P<0.05), and thyrotropin (TSH) was negatively correlated with ALB (r=-0.183, P<0.05). Conclusions For patients with cirrhosis, the more severe disease progresses, the lower the level of FT3 decreases, And the level of FT3 is closely related to the degree of liver function damage, which is of great value to judging the severity of patients with cirrhosis , and can be used in the diagnosis and treatment of patients. Key words: Cirrhosis of the liver; Thyroid hormone; Child-Pugh classification; Liver function