Gynecology & Obstetrics
Open Access
ISSN: 2161-0932
ISSN: 2161-0932
Craig Scoville
Institute of Arthritis Research, USA
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Gynecol Obstet
Preeclampsia is a significant medical condition that occurs in 3-8% of pregnancies after week 20 resulting in both maternal and fetal complications. Preeclampsia accounts for about 15% of premature births in the United States and worldwide results in the death of approximately 76,000 women. Preeclampsia is characterized by hypertension and proteinuria but the syndrome can also be associated with severe headaches, visual disturbances, significant abdominal pains, HELLP syndrome. Recent work has identified a unique maternal IgG1k found in placental tissue that crosses matches on NIH BLAST protein data search with anti-tetanus toxoid antibody. The hypothesis proposed here is that this unique IgG1k with anti-tetanus antibody properties crosses into the placenta and plays a significant role in modulating the immunological activity at the maternal-fetal interface and that women with low anti-tetanus antibodies are at higher risk of preeclampsia. To test this hypothesis a pilot study was conducted in which 145 pregnant women were recruited and nine women (6.2%) developed preeclampsia. Seven out of these nine women had preterm preeclampsia and had a mean anti-tetanus toxoid antibody level 0.67IU/ml, whereas 2/9 women had term preeclampsia and had mean anti-tetanus toxoid antibody level 2.79IU/ml. These findings suggest that pregnant women with gestational week 28 anti-tetanus toxoid antibody levels <1.3IU/ml (the sample median) are at higher risk of developing preterm preeclampsia (p-value 0.011), and that the anti-tetanus toxoid antibody level at week 28 may serve as a laboratory test to help distinguish between preterm and term forms of preeclampsia.
E-mail: maritza@scovilleclinic.com