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Serum leptin in first‐trimester Down syndrome pregnancies
Author(s) -
Hedley Paula,
Christiansen Michael
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
prenatal diagnosis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.956
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1097-0223
pISSN - 0197-3851
DOI - 10.1002/pd.1998
Subject(s) - leptin , medicine , endocrinology , placenta , pregnancy , gestational age , leptin receptor , fetus , biology , obesity , genetics
Background Leptin is a key regulator of satiety; and the serum concentration is considered to reflect nutritional status. Expressed predominantly by the adipocytes, leptin is also expressed in placenta, which is a major source of both leptin and the leptin receptor in pregnancy serum. As a placenta protein, leptin serum concentrations may be perturbed in Down syndrome (DS) pregnancies as seen for pregnancy‐associated plasma protein‐A (PAPP‐A) and human chorionic gonadotrophin‐β (hCGβ). We examined whether leptin is a maternal serum marker for foetal DS in the first trimester. Materials and Methods Serum samples from 44 pregnant women with a DS foetus, and 135 control pregnant women in week 8 to 14 had the leptin concentration determined by immunoassay and the concentrations were converted into multiples of the median (MoM) of controls based on log‐regression analysis. The distributions of log 10 MoM leptin was compared in DS and control pregnancies. Results Serum leptin increased significantly with gestational age in controls ( p = 0.02). The mean log 10 MoM in controls was − 0.0486, with a median empirical MoM of 0.89, and − 0.0618, with a median empirical MoM of 0.80, in DS pregnancies. This difference was not significant. The log 10 MoM leptin values in DS pregnancies did not change with gestational age ( p = 0.32). Conclusion Leptin is not a first‐trimester marker for foetal DS. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.