The 'sick euthyroid syndrome' or 'non-thyroidal illness syndrome' (NTIS) occurs in a large proportion of hospitalized patients and comprises a variety of alterations in the hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axis that are observed during illness. One of the hallmarks of NTIS is decreased thyroid hormone (TH) serum concentrations, often viewed as an adaptive mechanism to save energy. Downregul...

Peripheral metabolism of thyroid hormones is a critical component of the impact these hormones have on intracellular function. Thyroid hormones can be metabolized in peripheral tissue by deiodination, conjugation, deamination, and decarboxylation enzyme reactions. Therefore, alterations in these metabolic pathways might significantly impact the quantity of specific thyroid hormone metabolites i...

In critical illness, several abnormalities in thyroid hormone (TH) secretion, metabolism and action have been described in patients without previous diagnosis of intrinsic thyroid disease and are collectively called “Non thyroidal syndrome” (NTIS) [1]; this term is now largely employed, in the place of “euthyroid sick syndrome” [2-4] or “low-T3 syndrome”, due to the most common abnormality, a d...

To determine the patterns of thyroid dysfunction and autoantibodies associated with SLE and RA patients, twenty patients with SLE and another group of twenty with RA were studied. The results were compared with those of twenty apparently healthy age- and sex- matched controls. All patients were subjected to complete history taking, thorough clinical examination and joint examination. All patien...