PREGNANCY INDUCED HYPERTENSION;

Objective: To assess the early detection of thrombocytopenia in womenpresenting with varying degree of pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH). Study Design: A casecontrol study. Place of Study: Hematology laboratory Isra University Hospital Hyderabad.Duration of Study: From July 2009 to December 2010. Materials and Methods: Total 130pregnant women were included in this study. The subjects were divided into three groups asGroup 1 with pre-eclampsia, Group 2 with eclampsia and Group 3 with normotensive pregnantwomen as control group. The Group 1 was further divided into two sub groups such as Subgroup1a with mild preeclampsia and Sub-group 2b with severe pre-eclampsia. Results:Anticoagulated whole blood samples (5cc) from all subjects were analyzed for the detection ofthrombocytopenia for the possible involvement of pregnancy induced hypertension. It was notedthat out of total subjects, 33(25.39%) had mild pre-eclampsia, 17(13.07%) had severe preeclampsia,15(11.54%) had eclampsia and 65 (50.0%) were normotensive pregnant women.Based on the comparative findings, the results showed significant differences between group 3and group 1a (p-value 0.001), group 3 and group 1b (p-value 0.001), group 2 and group 3 alsoshowed same results (p-value 0.001) but the subjects of group 1a and 1b when compared,showed non-significant findings (p value 0.955). Conclusion: The results suggested that earlydetection of platelet count provide significant role for the assessment of severity of disease inwomen with pregnancy induced hypertension when compared with normotensive pregnantwomen.