Amniotic fluid selenium status in pre-eclampsia

A C Roy1, S S Ratnam, R Karunanithy

  • 1Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, National University of Singapore, Republic of Singapore.

Selenium levels were measured in amniotic fluid samples obtained from 60 normal pregnant and 40 pre-eclamptic women closely matched for age and gestation using the hydride generation technique coupled with atomic absorption spectroscopy. The mean +/- SD levels in the normal and pre-eclamptic groups were 6.8 +/- 3.7 and 6.7 +/- 2.2 ng/ml, respectively. The difference in the values of amniotic fluid selenium between these two groups of patients was not statistically significant (p greater than 0.5).