Objectives: To compare serum soluble endoglin (sEng) in women developed pre-eclampsia (PE group)
versus those free of hypertensive manifestations (Control group) till delivery and to evaluate the predictability of
single estimation versus sequential estimations for the development of PE. Patients & Methods: The study included
all primipara attending the antenatal care unit prior to the 12th week gestational age (GA) so as to select 90 pregnant
PE women. Then, all women attended the clinic 4-weekly till delivery for follow-up and to donate blood sample for
serum sEng estimation. Women developed PE were categorized according to time of development of PE into Earlyand
Late-onset PE and stopped blood donation once diagnosed. Results: Thirty-eight women developed early and
52 women developed late-onset PE. Mean serum sEng estimated at 16th week GA were significantly higher in early
compared to late-onset PE, despite the non-significant difference at 12th week GA and so the difference between 16th
and 12th week estimations was significantly higher with early versus late-onset PE. Serum sEng estimated at time of
PE diagnosis was significantly higher in early compared to late-onset PE. Serum sEng levels estimated at 12th week
GA showed positive significant correlation with the possibility of development of PE and systolic blood pressure
and at cutoff point of 14 ng/ml could identify women liable to develop PE with high sensitivity, but was a weak
point for differentiation between early and late PE, while on 16th week GA at cutoff point of 6 ng/ml could
specifically identify women liable to develop early-onset PE Conclusion: Serum sEng at 12th week GA could be
used as a sensitive screening test for women liable to development of PE and 4-weeks sequential estimation of
serum sEng in susceptible women could specifically identify women liable to develop early-onset PE prior to
clinical diagnosis. |
