Authors' reply: Angiogenic factors combined with clinical risk factors to predict preterm pre‐eclampsia in nulliparous women: a predictive test accuracy study

Sir, The SCOPE consortium report (September 2013) on the plasma biomarkers placental growth factor, soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase-1 and endoglin early in pregnancy for predicting preterm pre-eclampsia is the climax of a huge piece of work. However, the SCOPE study registration site defined the planned primary outcome as pre-eclampsia ‘at any stage during pregnancy after recruitment until delivery or in the first 2 weeks after delivery’. It also defined a planned secondary outcome of ‘early onset pre-eclampsia’ defined as ‘pre-eclampsia resulting in delivery at <34 weeks’. Can the authors explain why the three tests’ predictions of neither of these were reported? Have they been reported elsewhere? Why was the tests’ prediction of a new outcome of ‘pre-eclampsia before 37 weeks’, which was not mentioned on the trial registry, reported instead?&