evaluation of thyroid status in covid-19 patients: a retrospective study

Background: angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ace2) is a receptor for sars-cov-2, expressed in many organs’ cells, including the thyroid gland. therefore, covid-19 may influence thyroid gland function.objectives: in this article, we aimed to investigate the thyroid gland function in covid-19 patients and compare them to healthy society to indicate whether thyroid hormones level di er in the disease or not.methods: this is a single-center retrospective case-control, cross-sectional study on 191 covid-19 patients and 179 non-covid-19 indi-viduals as the control group. the status of the thyroid hormones was determined in covid-19 patients and then compared with the control group. patients in the case group were divided into 2 groups with and without normal thyroid function and were compared with each other in di erent aspects of covid-19. also, we compared thyroid hormone levels in the patient group with di erent underlying diseases to show the status of thyroid function in covid-19 infection.results: of the 191 covid-19 patients, 98 (51.3%) were male, and the mean age of patients was 64 ± 15 years. the thyrotropin level was lower in the patient group than in the control group (1.34 ± 1.29 vs. 2.21 ± 1.99; p < 0.001). the t3 status was meaningfully associated with the level of spo2 (p < 0.05; r = -0.258). the results demonstrated that thyrotropin (p = 0.653), t3 (p = 0.404), and t4 (p = 0.147) levels were not di erent in expired and discharged patients. the 2 groups of patients with and without normal thyrotropin levels did not appear significantly di erent in any aspect of the disease.conclusions: thyrotropin level was lower in covid-19 patients, and the t3 level can predict the spo2 level. the thyroid gland may be theoretically a ected by sars-cov-2 infection.