Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Vol 42, 443-458, Copyright © 1976 by Endocrine Society

ARTICLES

Effect of acute increases in serum triiodothyronine on TSH and prolactin responses to TRH, and estimates of pituitary stores of TSH and prolactin in normal subjects and in patients with primary hypothyroidism

L Wartofsky, RC Dimond, GL Noel, AG Frantz and JM Earll

Previous investigators have shown that daily administration of TRH to normal individuals leads to diminishing TSH responses which were believed due to rising serum T3 with subsequent feedback inhibition of the pituitary. Patients with primary hypothyroidism were examined in the present study to test this hypothesis, since their T3 cannot increase after TRH. Bi-daily TRH (100 mug) was given to 4 patients for 3 consecutive days, and repeated on a 4th day following oral T3 (50 mug). TSH and PRL responses were unchanged during these 3days of serial TRH and were unaltered by T3 administration on the fouth day. In 5 other hypothyroid subjects studied before and during 3 consecutive days of T3 administration, TSH but not PRL responses to TRH appeared to decrease slowly but progressively. These observations led us to re- examine TRH responses in normal subjects given T3, since other workers had reported that 50 mug T3 completely abolished TSH response. Responses to TRH in 11 normals on a control day were compared to those observed 1 hour after oral T3. In spite of marked increases in serum T3, there was no significant difference between the mean TSH responses of the two studies.