Ichihara K, Miyai K, Ashida N, Takeoka K
Department of Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine, Osaka University, Japan.
Endocrinol Jpn. 1989 Jun;36(3):373-80. doi: 10.1507/endocrj1954.36.373.
Factors associated with the basal level of serum thyrotropin (TSH) were analyzed over a wide range of pathophysiological conditions by means of a large laboratory database on thyroid function. When data were analyzed two-dimensionally, serum TSH showed significant inverse correlations with total triiodothyronine (T3), free T3 index (FT3I), total thyroxin (TT4) and free T4 index (FT4I) in the order of increasing intensity. The three-dimensional analysis, however, revealed that 1) total hormone levels were actually unrelated to serum TSH when the levels of free hormone indices were held constant, 2) the relation between FT3I and TSH became obscure when the influence of FT4I was similarly removed. On the other hand, 3) the relation of FT4I with TSH was unaffected by the level of FT3I. These results suggest that free T4 is the main determinant of the serum TSH level. This study also implies that it is possible to use large amounts of laboratory data to elucidate the overall profile of a given patho-physiological system, whose structure is only partially revealed by conventional clinical or animal studies.
利用一个关于甲状腺功能的大型实验室数据库，在广泛的病理生理条件下分析了与血清促甲状腺激素（TSH）基础水平相关的因素。当进行二维数据分析时，血清TSH与总三碘甲状腺原氨酸（T3）、游离T3指数（FT3I）、总甲状腺素（TT4）和游离T4指数（FT4I）呈显著负相关，且强度依次增加。然而，三维分析显示：1）当游离激素指数水平保持恒定时，总激素水平实际上与血清TSH无关；2）当类似地消除FT4I的影响时，FT3I与TSH之间的关系变得模糊。另一方面，3）FT4I与TSH的关系不受FT3I水平的影响。这些结果表明，游离T4是血清TSH水平的主要决定因素。本研究还表明，利用大量实验室数据来阐明给定病理生理系统的整体概况是可能的，而传统的临床或动物研究仅部分揭示了该系统的结构。
