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Clinical Chemistry, Vol 38, 414-415, Copyright © 1992 by American Association for Clinical Chemistry
YT Mak, EL Chan, A Chan, J Woo and R Swaminathan
Department of Chemical Pathology, Prince of Wales Hospital, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T.
We measured free triiodothyronine (FT3), thyrotropin (TSH), and C- reactive protein (CRP) in sera of 39 acutely ill medical patients who died within three months of admission and 39 age- and sex-matched control patients selected at random from a total of 294 acute medical admissions. Serum FT3 in nonsurvivors (1.91 +/- 1.51 pmol/L) was significantly lower than that in survivors (3.01 +/- 1.3 pmol/L, P less than 0.01) and the CRP in nonsurvivors (54.6 +/- 59.2 mg/L) was significantly higher than in survivors (43.6 +/- 59.5 mg/L, P less than 0.05). There was no difference in plasma TSH between the two groups. The estimated odds ratio relating death to a plasma FT3 value less than 1.0 pmol/L on admission was 17 (highly significant: P less than 0.001). We conclude that plasma FT3 may be a useful prognostic indicator in acutely ill patients.
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