Flow-mediated dilation of brachial artery and endothelial dysfunction in pregnant women with preeclampsia: a case...

Aim of the present study was to evaluate the association between endothelial dysfunction, evaluated through flow-mediated dilation (FMD) of the brachial artery, and preeclampsia.

A case-control prospective cross-sectional study was conducted on 81 pregnant women of between 20 and 39 weeks and 5 days, among whom 40 had preeclampsia and 41 were controls. The right brachial artery was identified using color Doppler, between 2 and 5 cm above the cubital fold. The diameter of the brachial artery was measured by calculating the distance between the proximal and distal intima (D1) during diastoles. Ischemia was caused for five minutes and the artery measurement was repeated 60 seconds after ending the compression (D2), during diastoles. The FMD (%) was calculated through the equation: (D2-D1)/D1 × 100. The association between independent variables and the presence of preeclampsia was estimated through odds ratios (OR) and their 95% confidence intervals (95% CI).

Seventy-five percent of the pregnant women with preeclampsia and 26.8% of the normotensive women presented reduction in the diameter of the brachial artery (OR = 8.18; 95% CI: 2.74-25.04) (P = 0.000). A greater proportion of the pregnant women with pre-eclampsia (42.1% vs. 14.3%) had a history of a mother with hypertension during pregnancy (OR = 4.36; 95% CI: 0.89-23.51) (P = 0.045).

We identified an association between endothelial dysfunction, evaluated through FMD of the brachial artery, and preeclampsia.