Association of Continuous Veno-venous Hemodiafiltration With Citrate Anticoagulation to Thyroid Function in Critically Ill Patients

After approval from the local Bioethics Committee of the Medical University of Gdańsk in Poland, the study was carried out between February 2019 and February 2020 among 32 patients admitted to ICU. There was no need to obtain written consent from the patients since the study was observational with no therapeutic intervention and decisional incapacity caused either by sedative drugs or severe condition of the patient.

Patients with acute kidney injury and indications for initiation of continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) were included to this study irrespective of their gender, race and age. Exclusion criteria were patients with previous end-stage chronic kidney disease treated with dialysis.

After decision to implement CRRT the serial blood samples were collected into two red-top tube (no anticoagulant or preservative) before initiation of CRRT and at 1,2,3,6,9,12,15,18-day following. Last samples were collected 3 days after the end of CRRT. Level of TSH, fT3 and fT4 were checked from the first tube after collecting the blood. Second tube was kept frozen until levels of TRH, TT3, TT4, rT3 could be measured. In all the patients high-dose continuous veno-venous hemodiafiltration (CVVHDF) with citrate anticoagulation was performed. Blood flow and dialysis dosage were the same for every patient depending on their weight. The weight was rounded up or down and patients were assigned to the nearest group.