Diabetes Drug may Prolong Preterm Pregnancies

Diabetes drug Metformin may help to prolong pregnancy by around a week in women with pre-eclampsia.

Metformin may help to prolong gestation by a week in women suffering from pre-eclampsia, as per the study published by The BMJ.

The result was not statistically significant and therefore points to the need for further study.

‘Extended release metformin could be used to prolong gestation in women diagnosed with preterm pre-eclampsia.’
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Pre-eclampsia is a serious condition caused by the placenta not developing properly. Preterm pre-eclampsia causes early delivery, putting babies at risk of serious disability and death, particularly in low and middle-income countries.

Metformin is given to diabetes patients to help control blood sugar levels, but studies suggest it could also be a potential treatment for pre-eclampsia.

So, researchers in Australia and South Africa assessed if extended release metformin could be used to prolong gestation in women diagnosed with preterm pre-eclampsia.

The trial took place at a large hospital in Cape Town, South Africa and involved 180 pregnant women undergoing close monitoring for preterm pre-eclampsia.

Women were recruited between February 2018 and March 2020 when they were, on average, 29 weeks’ pregnant. None of them had diabetes or were currently using metformin or any other drugs that might interact with it.

Pre-Eclampsia - Causes - Symptoms - Diagnosis - Treatment - FAQs
In pre eclampsia a pregnant woman develops high blood pressure and proteinuria during pregnancy.

Women were randomized to receive extended release metformin or placebo daily, until delivery.

The average time from randomization to delivery was 17.7 days in the metformin arm and 10.1 days in the placebo arm, an average difference of 7.6 days. However, this difference was not statistically significant.

Other two analyses showed an average 9.6 day longer gestation, and an average 11.5 day longer gestation. Both these results were statistically significant.

There were no differences between the two arms in terms of serious birth complications or death among both mothers and babies. And no serious adverse events were observed, although diarrhoea was more common in the metformin arm.

Limitations: This was a single centre study where the women had a high incidence of HIV, obesity, and chronic hypertension, so the results may not be more widely applicable.

More trials of metformin should be considered to confirm whether the drug can statistically significantly prolong gestation and to evaluate the benefits to newborns, they say.

However, based on the findings of this study, “we are cautiously optimistic that extended release metformin prolongs gestation in women with preterm pre-eclampsia.”

Source-Medindia