Does mild preeclampsia cause arterial stiffness and ventricular remodeling through inflammation?

A link between preeclampsia (PE) and excessive maternal morbidity and mortality is a commonly recognized fact. Moreover it has been suggested that chronic inflammatory state connected with PE contributes to accelerated atherosclerosis. There is also an association between PE and maternal cardiac remodeling and biventricular diastolic dysfunction. The aim of the study was to investigate the presence of impaired myocardial performance and increased arterial stiffness in patients who experienced a mild case of PE five years previously.

The study included forty PE patients (40 women; mean age 33.75 +/- 7.95) and 27 healthy volunteers (27 women; mean age 36.44 +/- 10.45)Transthoracic echocardiography including Doppler echocardiography combined with tissue Doppler imaging (TDI), and aortic stiffness index (AoSI), aortic distensibility (AoD), and aortic elastic modulus (AoEM) values were measured in each study participant.

There was a statistically significant increase in hsCRR aortic stiffness index, and aortic elastic modulus in PE patients as compared to controls (2.43 +/- 1.91 vs. 3.80 +/- 2.06, p=0.007; 3.09 +/- 2.41 vs. 7.32 +/- 6.89, p=0.001; 2.89 +/- 2.11 vs. 7.00 +/- 6.83, p=0.001), while a significant decrease was observed in the aortic strain and distensibility (respectively 22.35 +/- 15.99 vs. 12.24 +/- 9.22, p=0.005; 11.17 +/- 9.68 vs. 6.13 +/- 4.99, p=0.018). No differences between the two groups were observed with regard to the left ventricular myocardial performance index (MPI) (0.55 +/- 0.16 vs. 0.53 +/-0.19, p=0.630).

To the best of our knowledge, this has been the first study to demonstrate impaired aortic elasticity and unaffected myocardial performance index in patients with mild PE. Moreover, these effects turned out to be significantly correlated with inflammation.