ArticleEuropean thyroid journal2022
Detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection in thyroid follicular cells from a COVID-19 autopsy series.
Article in European thyroid journal, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Thyroid disorders and COVID-19: a comprehensive review of literature.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2025Pooled it
- Thyroid function during COVID-19 and post-COVID complications in adults: a systematic review.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Pooled it
- Long-term risk of incident autoimmune thyroid disease after COVID-19 in patients with type 2 diabetes: a multicenter propensity score-matched cohort study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Article
- Long-term risk of incident thyroid cancer after COVID-19 in patients with thyroid disorder: a multicenter propensity score-matched cohort study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Article
- Post-COVID-19 subacute painless thyroiditis: a case report in an anabolic androgenic steroid user.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Correlation of TSH Levels with Inflammatory Markers in COVID-19 Patients: A Retrospective Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- A survey of SARS-CoV-2 tropism.Infectious diseases & immunity · 2025Review
- Thyroid dysfunction in COVID-19.Nature reviews. Endocrinology · 2024Review
- Thyroid dysfunction in the wake of Omicron: understanding its role in COVID-19 severity and mortality.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Article
- COVID-19: detection methods in post-mortem samples.Pathologica · 2023Review
- Article
- SARS-CoV-2 infection and its effects on the endocrine system.Best practice & research. Clinical endocrinology & metabolism · 2023Review
- Painless thyroiditis incidentally diagnosed following SARS-CoV-2 infection.BMJ case reports · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: To understand whether thyroid cells can be directly infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and to establish a putative correlation with the expression of the host entry machinery: ACE-2, TMPRSS2, and furin. Methods: We assessed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 virus at the gene level by RT-PCR, viral RNA transcripts localization by in situ hybridization, and by detecting viral proteins by immunohistochemistry for the nucleocapsid and the spike proteins. Furthermore, we also described the immunoexpression of key host factors for virus entry in the COVID-19 thyroid samples. Results: We performed RT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2 in all autopsy specimens and detected viral genome positivity in 13 of 15 thyroid tissues and in a lung specimen. In 9 of the 14 positive samples, we were also able to confirm SARS-CoV-2 signal by in situ hybridization. Immunohistochemistry for the viral nucleocapsid and spike protein was also positive for ten and nine of the RT-PCR-positive cases, respectively, but revealed a lower sensitivity. We also described, for the first time in a COVID-19 series, the immunohistochemical expression of ACE-2, TMPRSS2, and furin in the thyroid. Conclusions: Our results obtained in thyroid specimens from deceased COVID-19 patients indicate that thyrocytes can be directly infected by SARS-CoV-2 since we detected the presence of SARS-CoV-2 genome in follicular cells. Nevertheless, we did not find a clear correlation between the presence of viral genome and the expression of the host factors for virus entry, namely ACE-2, TMPRSS2, and furin.
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