New research shows that there is no benefit from the common practice of using levothyroxine to preserve function of potential donor hearts.
The multicenter randomized placebo-controlled trial found that intravenous levothyroxine administration in hemodynamically unstable brain-dead donors did not improve the rate of heart transplantation or graft survival.
"This practice has been adopted by multiple organ-procurement organizations (OPOs) and is used on thousands of organ donors each year, without ever having been rigorously studied. It turns out that it doesn't have any benefit and may cause some harm," first author Raj Dhar, MD, a professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, Missouri, said in news release.
"Based on the results, we are already seeing practice change in some of our participating sites who had been using thyroid hormone and now are not," Dhar told theheart.org | Medscape Cardiology.
The study was published online November 29 in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Definitive Data, Major Implications
In a linked editorial, Kiran Khush, MD, with Stanford University School of Medicine, California, said that the study provides, "the most definitive data to date about donor thyroid hormone replacement therapy."
The results have "major clinical implications" for OPOs, with nearly half of these organizations in the United States routinely administering thyroid hormone during donor care, Khush added.
