When you’re expecting a baby, you hope nothing goes wrong. But at least one in 20 women who become pregnant has a frightening complication called preeclampsia, a high blood pressure condition that kills 70,000 women and 500,000 children worldwide each year.
Until now there was no way to know when it might strike. New blood tests could help doctors predict and manage this dangerous condition.
“When something bad happens in pregnancy, you want to catch it early so you can avoid adverse outcomes for the mother and the baby,” said Dr. S. Ananth Karumanchi of Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. (Read this also | Jaideep Ahlawat lost 26 kilos in 5 months for Maharaj! Shares before-after photos,
What is preeclampsia?
This condition affects both the mother and the baby and may occur in the second half of pregnancy or the postpartum period. The exact causes are not known.
In addition to high blood pressure, other symptoms of preeclampsia include protein in the urine, severe headache, vision changes, nausea, and sudden swelling in your face and hands. It is usually diagnosed by checking for protein in the urine, measuring blood pressure, and other tests if necessary.
Once preeclampsia develops, it can progress quickly and cause organ damage, stroke, premature birth, slow growth in the baby, and other problems.
To prevent this condition, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that pregnant patients take low-dose aspirin if they have one or more special risk factors, such as chronic high blood pressure, type 1 or 2 diabetes, or kidney disease before pregnancy.
The primary treatment for preeclampsia is to deliver the baby or manage the condition until the baby is born. People with severe preeclampsia are usually hospitalized and may be given medications to lower blood pressure, prevent seizures, and help the fetus’ lungs develop.
How do the new tests work?
These tests measure “biomarkers” for preeclampsia in the blood, which are objective measurements that tell what is happening in the organism at any given time.
At this time, there are only a few tests available in the market.
A test manufactured by LabCorp is performed on any pregnant woman between 11 and 14 weeks of gestation. It measures four early pregnancy biomarkers, which, combined with other factors, help determine the risk of developing preeclampsia before 34 weeks of pregnancy.
Two other tests — one by LabCorp and one by Thermo Fisher Scientific — are used on hospitalized patients in the second and third trimesters to determine if they are at risk of developing severe preeclampsia within a few weeks. More tests by other companies are in the pipeline.
“They certainly represent an exciting advancement, especially when you look at the field of preeclampsia and the fact that there have been very few new developments in this field in decades,” said Eleni Tsigas, CEO of the nonprofit Preeclampsia Foundation. She lost a baby and nearly died from undiagnosed preeclampsia nearly two decades ago, and developed the disease again in her second pregnancy and gave birth to a son who spent time in neonatal intensive care.
He said the new blood tests enhance a doctor’s judgment but don’t replace it, “basically giving them information they didn’t get before. And that’s particularly useful in cases where things are in a gray zone,” such as when you already have health problems like chronic high blood pressure or obesity.
Should you ask for a test?
“If I were pregnant today I would definitely do it,” Tsigas said.
Karumanchi said that although “there is no treatment available at the moment”, doctors can keep a closer eye on people at high risk and do more follow-up with them. For low-risk patients, these tests provide reassurance.
These trials could also help speed up the development of new treatments, he said, because researchers can identify at-risk patients who might be willing to join studies.
Still, some OB-GYNs might not offer these tests right away because they’re so new, Tsigas said. But she wonders: Why wait?
“You only have to look at the mortality and morbidity rates associated with preeclampsia to know that we still have more work to do,” he said. “So I don’t think there’s any harm in adding tools to an almost empty toolbox.”
