Permanent atrial fibrillation in heart failure patients as another condition with increased reverse triiodothyronine concentration.

OBJECTIVE: To fully investigate the thyroid hormonal function in patients with the most common arrhythmia - atrial fibrillation.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: 120 patients (aged 55-85 yrs) with symptoms of congestive heart failure exacerbation and no other concomitant disorders (inclusion criteria: normal cardiac troponin T at admission and 12 hours after, normal renal, hepatic and respiratory function; exclusion criteria: inflammatory state, history of myocardial infarction). Depending on the presence of permanent atrial fibrillation (PAF), patients were divided into two groups: PAF (34 females, 26 males) and regular sinus heart rhythm (43 females, 17 males), the groups did not differ in terms of heart rate, blood pressure, presence of overt/subclinical thyroid dysfunction, and medical therapy used. In all subjects thyroid stimulating hormone, free thyroxine, free triiodothyronine, reverse triiodothyronine were measured; echocardiography was performed.

RESULTS: PAF group showed higher FT4 and rT3 (1.41 vs. 1.27 ng/dl, p=0.0007; 0.61 vs. 0.32 ng/ml, p<0.0001, respectively). With ROC curve analysis the biochemical thyroid related factor of the highest prognostic value for PAF occurrence (with the highest sensitivity and specificity: 77% and 72%, respectively) was rT3 with the cut-off of above 0.3 ng/ml. Also, a positive correlation between rT3 levels and left ventricular posterior wall diameter was observed (Spearman's correlation coefficient 0.33, p=0.0093).

CONCLUSIONS: PAF is another condition where an increase in rT3 is observed. rT3 concentration above 0.3 ng/ml may be a novel biochemical sign associated with the presence of PAF in patients with chronic heart failure.