Maternal plasma fetuin-A levels in fetal growth restriction: A case-control study

Higher Fetuin-A (FA) concentrations were found to be associated with obesity and there is an interest to the relation between maternal FA and pregnancy outcomes.

In this study, our aim was to evaluate the association of maternal plasma levels of FA with fetal growth restriction (FGR).

41 pregnant women with FGR and 40 controls were recruited in this case-control study between July and November 2015. At the diagnosis of FGR, venous blood samples (10 cc) were obtained for FA analysis.

Maternal plasma FA levels were significantly higher in fetal growth-restricted pregnant women compared with controls (19.3 $$ 3.0 ng/ml vs 25.9 $$ 6.8 ng/ml, p = 0.001). Area under receiver operating characteristic curve analysis of FA in FGR was 0.815 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.718-0.912, p $$ 0.001). The maternal FA levels with values more than 22.5 ng/ml had a sensitivity of about 73.17% (95% CI: 56.79-85.25) and a specificity of about 82.5% (95% CI: 66.64-92.11) with positive and negative predictive values of about 81.08% (95% CI: 64.29-91.45) and 75% (95% CI: 59.35-86.30), respectively. Therefore, the diagnostic accuracy was obtained about 77.78%.

The results of this study show higher maternal plasma levels of FA in FGR. Further studies are needed in order to demonstrate the long-term effects of FA in pregnancies complicated with FGR and early prediction of FGR.