Premium
Mid‐trimester triple test levels in early and late onset severe pre‐eclampsia
Author(s) -
Shenhav Simon,
Gemer Ofer,
Sassoon Essie,
Volodarsky Michael,
Peled Ronit,
Segal Shmuel
Publication year - 2002
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.365
Subject(s) - medicine , eclampsia , obstetrics , gestation , retrospective cohort study , pregnancy , gynecology , biology , genetics
Objective To study whether the degree of elevation of mid‐trimester triple test markers differs in patients with early versus late onset severe pre‐eclampsia. Methods A retrospective study of the medical records of 102 patients with severe pre‐eclampsia for whom mid‐trimester triple test result data were available was made. None of these patients had fetuses with abnormal karyotype nor delivered infants with malformations. Pre‐eclampsia was defined as early onset when it presented before 32 weeks' gestation. The levels of mid‐trimester maternal serum alpha‐fetoprotein (MSAFP), human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) and unconjugated oestriol (MSuE 3 ) in patients with early and late onset severe pre‐eclampsia were compared. Results Twenty‐five patients had early onset and 77 patients had late onset severe pre‐eclampsia. The two groups did not differ significantly with regard to age, weight, parity and severity of pre‐eclampsia. The mean MSAFP in patients with early onset was significantly higher than in patients with late onset severe pre‐eclampsia (1.46 MoM, SE 0.12 versus 1.16 MoM, SE 0.05; p =0.01). The mean hCG in the early onset group was also significantly higher than in the late onset group (1.71 MoM, SE 0.18 versus 1.21 MoM, SE 0.07; p =0.03). Mean MSuE 3 levels in patients with early onset were significantly lower than in patients with late onset severe pre‐eclampsia (0.83 MoM, SE 0.05 versus 1.02 MoM, SE 0.03; p =0.04). Conclusions Higher MSAFP and hCG, and lower MSuE 3 , may be more significant markers of early rather than late onset severe pre‐eclampsia. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.