Vascular responses in term pregnant and non-pregnant human uterus

The effects of pregnancy and placental localization on vascular responses to endogenous vasoconstrictor agents were studied in intramyometrial arteries dissected from myometrial biopsies. The tissues were taken from the lower uterine segment in patients subjected to hysterectomy (n = 8), and in pregnant patients undergoing caesarean section without (n = 8) and with low anterior placental insertion/placenta previa (n = 8). Isometric tension was recorded in vascular ring preparations mounted in organ baths and the contractile effects of angiotensin II, noradrenaline, vasopressin and the TxA2-mimic U46619 were studied. No differences in contractile responses between vessels from the three patient groups were found. When comparing vessels from all the pregnant patients with those from non-pregnant patients, vasopressin showed lower Emax values in preparations from the pregnant women, but otherwise no differences were found. The pD2 values (= -log EC50) ranked the agonists vasopressin greater than U46619 greater than or equal to angiotensin II greater than or equal to noradrenaline (U46619 greater than noradrenaline), while no major differences emerged for the Emax values. The results do not provide evidence that pregnancy and placental localization produce major changes in intramyometrial vascular responses to endogenous vasoconstrictor agents of suggested importance for regulation of human maternal placental resistance.