Differences compared with other infection-related thyroiditis
Although thyrotoxicosis relating to subacute viral thyroiditis can result from a wide variety of viral infections, there are some key differences with COVID-19, Dr. Muller said.
“Thyroid dysfunction related to SARS-CoV-2 seems to be milder than that of classic subacute thyroiditis due to other viruses,” she explained. Furthermore, thyroid dysfunction associated with other viral infections is more common in women, whereas there were more male patients with the COVID-19–related atypical thyroiditis.
In addition, the thyroid effects developed early with COVID-19, whereas they usually emerge after the infections by other viruses.
Patients did not demonstrate the neck pain that is common with classic viral thyroiditis, and the thyroid abnormalities appear to correlate with the severity of COVID-19, whereas they are seen even in patients with mild symptoms when other viral infections are the cause.
In addition to the risk for subacute viral thyroiditis, critically ill patients in general are at risk of developing nonthyroidal illness syndrome, with alterations in thyroid function. However, thyroid hormone measures in the patients severely ill with COVID-19 were not consistent with that syndrome.
A subanalysis of eight HICU 2020 patients with thyroid dysfunction who were followed for 55 days after discharge showed that two experienced hyperthyroidism but likely not from COVID-19; in the remaining six, thyroid function normalized.
Muller speculated that, when ill with COVID-19, the patients likely had a combination of SARS-CoV-2–related atypical thyroiditis and nonthyroidal illness syndrome, known as T4 toxicosis.
Will there be any long-term effects?
Importantly, it remains unknown whether the novel coronavirus has longer-term effects on the thyroid, Dr. Muller said.
“We cannot predict what will be the long-lasting thyroid effects after COVID-19,” she said.
With classic subacute viral thyroiditis, “After a few years … 5%-20% of patients develop permanent hypothyroidism, [and] the same might happen in COVID-19 patients,” she hypothesized. “We will follow our patients long term to answer this question – this study is already ongoing.”
In the meantime, diagnosis of thyroid dysfunction in patients with COVID-19 is important, inasmuch as it could worsen the already critical conditions of patients, Muller stressed.
“The gold-standard treatment for thyroiditis is steroids, so the presence of thyroid dysfunction might represent an additional indication to such treatment in COVID-19 patients, to be verified in properly designed clinical trials,” she advised.
ACE2 cell receptors highly expressed in thyroid
Dr. Muller and colleagues also noted recent research showing that ACE2 – demonstrated to be a key host-cell entry receptor for both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 – is expressed in even higher levels in the thyroid than the lungs, where it causes COVID-19’s notorious pulmonary effects.
Dr. Muller said the implications of ACE2 expression in the thyroid remain to be elucidated.
“If ACE2 is confirmed to be expressed at higher levels, compared with the lungs in the thyroid gland and other tissues, i.e., small intestine, testis, kidney, heart, etc, dedicated studies will be needed to correlate ACE2 expression with the organs’ susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 reflected by clinical presentation,” she said.
Dr. Leung added that, as a take-home message from these and the other thyroid/COVID-19 studies, “data are starting to show us that COVID-19 infection may cause thyrotoxicosis that is possibly related to thyroid and systemic inflammation. However, the serum thyroid function test abnormalities seen in COVID-19 patients with subacute thyroiditis are also likely exacerbated to a substantial extent by nonthyroidal illness physiology.”
The authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Leung is on the advisory board of Medscape Diabetes and Endocrinology.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
