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Clinical Evalution of a Direct Colorimetic Method for Determination of Amniotic Phospholipids
Author(s) -
Nishino Eriko,
Takagi Tetsu,
Okamoto Eisaku,
Masuhiro Kazuo,
Iwata Itsuko,
Mitsuda Nobuaki,
Tanizawa Osamu,
Yoshida Yukuo,
Tagawa Kunio,
Fujiwara Futoshi
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
asia‐oceania journal of obstetrics and gynaecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.597
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1447-0756
pISSN - 0389-2328
DOI - 10.1111/j.1447-0756.1990.tb00217.x
Subject(s) - amniotic fluid , sphingomyelin , lecithin , chromatography , phospholipid , dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine , chemistry , fetus , phosphatidylcholine , pregnancy , cholesterol , biochemistry , biology , membrane , genetics
Evaluation of amniotic phospholipids, which are a parameter of fetal lung maturation, is important in the management of premature infants. The method available for measuring the lecithin/sphingomyelin (L/S) ratio, which appears to provide an index to fetal lung maturity, is laborious, involving determinations of phospholipids, and so is unsuitable for rapid quantitative measurement of phospholipids in the amniotic fluid in the perinatal period. We developed a simple, sensitive colorimetric assay for phospholipids without their extraction. This assay is based on the fact that phospholipids form stable hydrophobic complexes with Co(SCN) 4 , Fe(SCN) 2 ‐ and Fe(SCN) 3 within about 1 hr. Amniotic fluid samples ( n =115) were collected from women with normal and abnormal pregnancies in week 16–41 of pregnancy, and these samples were examined both by thin layer chromatography (TLC) and by our method of phospholipid determination. Good correlations were observed between the L/S ratio determined by TLC and the values obtained by this method. Moreover the distributions of the dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine(DPPC) content and DPPC/sphingomyelin(SM) ratio were similar to those of the PC content and L/S ratio. This method was proved to be more accurate than other methods such as TLC and the shake test for predicting neonatal RDS.