Demonstration of reciprocal diurnal variation in human serum T3 and rT3 concentration demonstrated by mass spectrometric analysis and establishment of thyroid hormone reference intervals

Background: There has been a wide range of reference intervals proposed in previous literature for thyroid hormones due to large between-assay variability of immunoassays, as well as lack of correction for collection time. We provided the diurnal reference intervals for five thyroid hormones, namely total thyroxine (TT4), total triiodothyronine (TT3), free thyroxine (FT4), free triiodothyronine (FT3), and reverse T3 (rT3), measured in serum samples of healthy participants using a liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method. Methods: Couplet serum samples (a.m. and p.m.) were collected from 110 healthy females and 49 healthy males. Healthy volunteers were recruited from four participating centers between 2016 and 2018. Measurements of thyroid hormones were obtained by LC-MS/MS analysis. Results: Our study revealed significant uptrend in AM to PM FT4 (p < 0.0001) samples, downtrend in AM to PM TT3 (p = 0.0004) and FT3 samples (p < 0.0001), and AM to PM uptrend in rT3 samples (p < 0.0001). No difference was observed for TT4 between AM and PM. No significant sex differences were seen for any of the five thyroid hormones. Conclusion: When diagnosing thyroid disorders, it is important to have accurate measurement of thyroid hormones, and to acknowledge the diurnal fluctuation found, especially for FT3. Our study highlights the importance of standardization of collection times and implementation of LC-MS/MS in thyroid hormone measurement.