Immunohistochemical evaluation of iron accumulation in term placenta of preeclamptic patients

Preeclampsia is a disease which involves hypertension and multisystem, it effects approximately 2 to 8% of all pregnancies and is a significant cause of maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity. It develops in the placenta and its pathogenesis is associated with placental abnormalities. Classical immunohistochemical studies on placenta have shown that there is a linear increase in iron storage in the placenta in the first half of a normal pregnancy, however, these stocks are decreased in normal 3 rd trimester placenta. Iron accumulation in term placentas of preeclamptic and normal pregnancies were evaluated in this study. Ferritin immunostaining was observed to be more intense in preeclamptic group than in the control group, especially in Hofbauer cells, subtrophoblastic areas of stem villous, perivasculer stroma and villous stroma. Statistical analysis of the data was performed using SPSS software. Mann Whitney U test was used in the analysis and P values below 0.05 were statistically significant. In this study, iron accumulations in normotensif and preeclamptic placentas were compared. Key words: Preeclampsia, placenta, immunohistochemistry, iron accumulation.