Novel biomarkers reveal mismatch between tissue and serum thyroid hormone status in amiodarone-induced hyperthyroidism.

Abstract

Context: Serum TSH and thyroid hormone (TH) levels are routine markers of thyroid function. However, their diagnostic performance is limited under special conditions, e.g. in amiodarone-induced hyperthyroidism (AIH). Such cases would require the assessment of tissue TH action, which is currently unfeasible.

Objective: Development of an approach that determines how well serum parameters are reflected in tissue TH action of patients.

Methods: TH-responsive marker genes were identified from human hair follicles (HF) with Next Generation Sequencing, validated by qPCR. A classification model was built with these markers to assess tissue TH action and was deployed on amiodarone treated patients. The impact of amiodarone on tissue TH action was also studied in Thyroid Hormone Action Indicator (THAI) mice.

Results: The classification model was validated and shown to predict tissue TH status of subjects with good performance. Serum- and HF-based TH statuses were concordant in hypothyroid and euthyroid amiodarone treated patients. In contrast, amiodarone decreased the coincidence of serum-based and HF-based TH statuses in hyperthyroid patients, indicating that AIH is not unequivocally associated with tissue hyperthyroidism. This was confirmed in the THAI model, where amiodarone prevented tissue hyperthyroidism in THAI mice despite high serum fT4.

Conclusion: We developed a minimally-invasive approach using HF markers to assess tissue TH economy that could complement routine diagnostics in controversial cases. We observed that a substantial proportion of AIH patients do not develop tissue hyperthyroidism, indicating that amiodarone protects tissues from thyrotoxicosis. Assessing tissue TH action in patients with AIH may be warranted for treatment decisions.