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Cardiac Involvement in Thyroid Hormone Resistance

Departments of Endocrinology/Metabolism (G.J.K.) and Cardiology/Angiology (S.M.-K.), Gutenberg University Hospital, Mainz 55101, Germany; and Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke’s Hospital (C.H.M., C.A.R., V.K.K.C.), Cambridge CB2 2QQ, United Kingdom

Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Prof. George J. Kahaly, University Hospital, Mainz 55101, Germany. E-mail: kahaly{at}endokrinologie.klinik.uni-mainz.de

To analyze the cardiovascular alterations thought to occur in resistance to thyroid hormone (RTH), cardiac involvement in 54 patients with RTH was investigated with the help of two-dimensional and Doppler echocardiography. Data from 41 of 54 adult subjects with RTH were also compared with those of 24 and 20 cases with hyperthyroidism (H) and hypothyroidism (h), respectively, as well as 22 healthy euthyroid controls (C). With respect to the type of mutations, no correlation was found between cardiovascular features and genotype. Compared with affected adults, children with RTH showed markedly higher serum free T₃ (FT₃), free T₄ (FT₄), and baseline TSH concentrations. Compared with healthy children of comparable age, RTH children had significantly higher heart rate and lower left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction (P = 0.006). Also, higher heart rate and FT₄ as well as shorter diastolic relaxation of the myocardium (all P = 0.001) between RTH subjects with and without thyrotoxic cardiovascular features were found. Cardiac symptoms (palpitations, 32% vs. 71%) and signs (sinus tachycardia, 26% vs. 79%; atrial fibrillation, 6% vs. 17%) were significantly less frequent in RTH vs. H (all P = 0.001). Compared with C and h, heart rate, cardiac output, stroke volume, and systolic aortic flow velocity were strongly increased in RTH (all P = 0.0001) and H, although ejection (P = 0.0012) and shortening (P = 0.0001) fractions of the LV were markedly lower in RTH vs. H. Diastolic parameters, such as isovolumic relaxation (P = 0.0001) and deceleration time (P = 0.013), were shorter in RTH vs. h and C. In RTH, positive correlations between FT₃ and heart rate, and between FT₄ and LV ejection fraction were observed, whereas negative correlations between both FT₃ and FT₄ and isovolumic relaxation were noted. In conclusion, these findings indicate a modulated hyperthyroid effect on cardiac systolic and diastolic function of the myocardium in RTH, whereas other parameters, such as ejection and shortening fractions of the LV, systolic diameter, and LV wall thickness, were comparable to C. Differences in term of cardiovascular changes were smaller between the RTH and C groups than the RTH and the H or h groups. Thus, an incomplete cardiac response to thyroid hormone is present in RTH.

This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust (to V.K.K.C.).

¹ C.H.M. is a Wellcome Trust Advanced Training Fellow.

Abbreviations: C, Control; FT₃, free T₃; FT₄, free T₄; GRTH, generalized resistance to thyroid hormone; H, hyperthyroidism; h, hypothyroidism; LV, left ventricular; ß-MHC, ß-myosin heavy chain; PRTH, pituitary resistance to thyroid hormone; RTH, resistance to thyroid hormone; TH, thyroid hormone.

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