Novel Blood Test: Revolutionizing Preeclampsia Detection and Care

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States has approved a blood test that can help detect preeclampsia, a dangerous hypertension condition that affects approximately 2% to 8% of pregnant women globally (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Preeclampsia

Go to source). Doctors typically measure blood pressure and proteins in urine to assess preeclampsia risk, but as pregnancy advances, these tests become poor predictors, increasing the risk of disability and death among pregnant women.

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New Protein-Based Blood Test For Preeclampsia

The new test detects sFlt1 and PIGF, two proteins in the blood that indicate poor preeclampsia outcomes with far higher accuracy than current approaches.

The test can be used between 23 and 35 weeks of pregnancy to predict the development of severe preeclampsia in women who are experiencing or have been diagnosed with the condition.

“Doctors can use this in conjunction with other clinically available tests to stratify their patients to determine whether they’re at high risk for severe preeclampsia and complications, or at low risk, to be managed appropriately,” said Sarosh Rana, the chief of maternal-foetal medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine and a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology.

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Complexities of Preeclampsia: Symptoms, Diagnostic Challenges, and Treatment

While high blood pressure is the most obvious indicator of preeclampsia, other symptoms include increased protein in the urine and organ damage.

Even though some women have no symptoms, it is a common cause of maternal and fetal problems, as well as preterm delivery.

Preeclampsia has no precise diagnostic test, and the only option to cure it is to deliver the baby and the placenta (the latter is thought to cause the condition).

If the infant is too immature to survive outside the womb, doctors use hypertension medicines, magnesium, and steroids to treat the mother's sickness.

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Long-Term Implications of Preeclampsia

Preeclampsia can also have long-term consequences.

“Women who have preeclampsia are at higher risk for short-term and long-term hypertensive disorders and cardiovascular disease for the remainder of their lives,” said Rana.

She emphasized that for women who test negative and are assessed to be at low risk, the test may result in shorter hospital stays and fewer if any, steroid treatments.

Patients who are labeled high-risk by the test may be sent to a higher level of care facility that is better equipped to address maternal problems and preterm delivery.

The test may help lessen the likelihood of preterm birth in people with preeclampsia which doctors suspect but cannot confirm.

Reference:

1. Preeclampsia - (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK570611/)

Source-Medindia