Influence of Thyroid Hormones on the Woundhealing Process

Main goal of this clinical investigation is to investigate different cytokines in wound fluids of euthyroid vs. hypothyroid patients. As a primary endpoint we want to evaluate if different cytokine levels in euthyroid vs. hypothyroid patients exist and to what extent these cytokines differ. Our targeted cytokines are: IL6, IL10, TNFa and MCP-1. From the literature these 4 factors seem to be the most reasonable to measure and to focus on. Additionally we focus on these 4 factors for financial reasons, technically there wouldn't be a problem to measure more, which is correlated with higher costs. Besides, more than 6 factors would mean larger amounts of sample fluids needed, which would cause technical problems. These factors don't have to change in the same direction. Secondarily, we believe that differences in cytokine profiles of hypothyroidism vs. euthyroidism will correlate to differences in duration and clinical characteristics of the wound healing process.