Cork: Biomarkers for predicting preeclampsia in pregnancy

Research lead

A team led by University College Cork professor Louise Kenny has identified 14 new metabolites that can detect first-time pregnant women’s risk for preeclampsia, a life-threatening condition that often does not present until the second half of pregnancy.

Currently there is no predictive test for the condition and no cure other than delivery of the baby. The research findings are published this week in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Preeclampsia is characterised by high blood pressure and elevated protein in the urine. The condition is thought to begin in early pregnancy with defective development of the placenta but is not usually picked up until the second half of pregnancy. Preeclampsia can endanger the lives of both mother and child, and is a leading cause of maternal death.

The researchers studied 7,000 women who were pregnant for the first time in an international trial called SCOPE (Screening for Pregnancy Endpoints).

In the case control study, researchers first discovered and evaluated the detection rate of the test in women at 15 weeks’ gestation with low risk of preeclampsia in Auckland, New Zealand. The 60 fit, healthy, first-time pregnant women (average age 30) later developed preeclampsia. They were matched with a control group of 60 women.

The study’s second phase validated the initial findings in an entirely different group of women in Adelaide, Australia. These women were younger, with an average age of 22-23 and were ethnically more diverse compared to the predominantly Caucasian group in New Zealand. Thirty-nine women subsequently developed preeclampsia later after the early test. There were 40 matched controls.

The researchers are now trying to simplify the technology to develop a single blood test for the bedside that will be cheap and readily accessible to hospitals everywhere.

“In the next five years our aim is to develop a simple blood test that will be available to all pregnant women that will detect the risk of preeclampsia in early pregnancy,” said Dr Phil Baker MD, Dean of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta and co-investigator of the study.

The study was carried out by researchers from University College, Cork, Ireland, University of Manchester UK, University of Auckland, New Zealand, University of Adelaide, Australia and University of Alberta, Canada.