Development of the low-T3-syndrome and prognosis assessment in patients with liver cirrhosis.

The aim of our study is to prove whether the development of the low-T3-syndrome in patients with liver cirrhosis is associated with their prognosis. For this purpose we determined the peripheral thyroid hormone levels in 28 patients with liver cirrhosis. For prognosis assessment we calculated the Prognostic Index (PI) on the basis of Cox's regression model as recently described by us. Calculating this index we used 11 parameters: liver morphology, consciousness, spider naevi, PCV, thrombocytes, gamma-GT, cholesterol, albumin, Quick's value, IgA, and potassium. It is demonstrated that there is an inverse correlation between T3-serum levels and PI (p = 0.03). An association could not be detected neither between reverse T3 and PI nor between T3 and rT3. On the other hand basal TSH was also inversely associated with PI. Thus, the low T3-serum levels did not induce a rise of basal TSH in cirrhotics. Moreover, the mean serum-T3-concentration differed significantly from that of 6 decreased patients and from that of the surviving (p = 0.00076). It seems to be true that low T3-serum levels are a very sensitive parameter for prognosis prediction in patients with liver cirrhosis.