First-trimester prediction of hypertensive disorders in pregnancy

This study aimed to establish a method of screening for pregnancy hypertension by a combination of maternal variables, including mean arterial pressure, uterine artery pulsatility index, pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A, and placental growth factor in early pregnancy. The base-cohort population constituted of 7797 singleton pregnancies, including 34 case subjects who developed preeclampsia (PE) requiring delivery before 34 weeks (early PE) and 123 with late PE, 136 with gestational hypertension, and 7504 cases subjects (96.3%) who were unaffected by PE or gestational hypertension. Maternal history, uterine artery pulsatility index, mean arterial pressure, and pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A were recorded in all of the cases in the base cohort, but placental growth factor was measured only in the case-control population of 209 cases who developed hypertensive disorders and 418 controls. In each case the measured mean arterial pressure, uterine artery pulsatility index, pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A, and placental growth factor were converted to a multiple of the expected median (MoM) after correction for maternal characteristics found to affect the measurements in the unaffected group. Early PE and late PE were associated with increased mean arterial pressure (1.15 MoM and 1.08 MoM) and uterine artery pulsatility index (1.53 MoM and 1.23 MoM) and decreased pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A (0.53 MoM and 0.93 MoM) and placental growth factor (0.61 MoM and 0.83 MoM). Logistic regression analysis was used to derive algorithms for the prediction of hypertensive disorders. It was estimated that, with the algorithm for early PE, 93.1%, 35.7%, and 18.3% of early PE, late PE, and gestational hypertension, respectively, could be detected with a 5% false-positive rate and that 1 in 5 pregnancies classified as being screen positive would develop pregnancy hypertension. This method of screening is far superior to the traditional approach, which relies entirely on maternal history.