Objective:

In our study, the purpose was to determine the relationship between thyroid hormones and mortality of patients over the age of 55 who were hospitalized in an intensive care unit from the emergency service.

Material and Methods:

This study was planned as a prospective, randomized study, and patients hospitalized in an intensive care unit from the emergency medicine department were enrolled in this study following ethics committee approval. A standard data collection form was used to collect the data. After confirmation from the patients and their relatives, we included 73 patients in our study: 48 (65.8%) males and 25 (34.2%) females. Blood samples were taken from each patient, and thyroid hormone levels were studied in our laboratory. The “SPSS for Windows version 18” program was used for statistical analysis of the data. Chi-square test was used to compare categorical measures between the groups. Mann-Whitney U-test and t-test were used to compare quantitative measurements between the groups. The log-rank test was performed under Kaplan-Meier survival analysis to determine the relationship between the estimated lifetime and free T3 (fT3), free T4 (fT4), and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH).

Results:

There was no statistically significant difference in mean ages and genders of patients who died and survived. The mean duration of hospitalization in the deceased patient group was lower than in the surviving patient group, but there was no statistically significant difference between the groups. According to the Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, the patients with low or high levels of fT3 were found to have a shorter median life expectancy. No significant relationship was found between mortality and fT4 TSH.

Conclusion:

According to our study, increased or decreased levels of fT3 in patients over the age of 55 without known thyroid disease, hospitalized in an intensive care unit from the emergency department, showed increased mortality. This study will be useful for emergency medicine physicians to be able to predict the mortality of patients and contribute to more clinical experience. FT3 levels can be used as a prognostic indicator after more detailed studies are completed.

Keywords: Mortality, thyroid hormones, emergency