CRIB DEATHS LINKED TO HORMONE LEVELS IN AN AUTOPSY STUDY
Published: November 6, 1981
BALTIMORE, Nov. 5— The discovery of unusually high hormone levels in babies stricken by sudden infant death syndrome may pave the way for a simple blood test to identify infants in danger of crib death, according to researchers.
In an article in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics, Dr. J. Tyson Tildon and Marco Chacon reported that autopsies of 50 victims of the syndrome showed that 44, or 88 percent, of the babies had abnormally high levels of a thyroid hormone called tri-iodothyonine, or T-3.
Dr. Tildon directs the University of Maryland's Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Institute, the only research body in the United States devoted solely to finding what causes the sudden, unexplained deaths of more than 7,000 infants each year. Mr. Chacon is a doctoral candidate in biochemistry. First Bloodstream Finding
Dr. Tildon said that discovery of the high T-3 levels of the victims, sometimes four times greater than those of babies in the study's control groups, marked the first time researchers had found a link to the syndrome that could be detected in the bloodstream.
Researchers are now trying to develop blood tests that could be used to determine T-3 levels of living infants, Dr. Tildon said. He emphasized that at this time scientists did not know if the high levels of T-3 caused the syndrome or simply indicated other conditions behind the sudden deaths.
The doctor urged that all physicians performing autopsies on victims of crib death, which account for 30 to 50 percent of all infant deaths in the United States, now test for the T-3 level in the infant's bloodstream.