Low Prognostic Nutritional Index Contributes to High Adverse Events in Preeclampsia

Preeclampsia (PE) is a common obstetric complication that has caused significant harm to pregnant mothers. The clinical significance of poor nutritional status in PE patients is unclear. The aim of our study was to evaluate the nutritional status as measured by the prognostic nutritional index (PNI) score at admission, and its ability to predict in-hospitalization adverse events in patients with PE.

We enrolled patients diagnosed with PE in the Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University from January 2019 to December 2021. Patients were divided into low and high nutritional status group according to the cut-off value of PNI score at admission using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. PNI score were used to explore the relationship between PNI score and in-hospitalization adverse events presented with hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI).

A total of 733 patients were included in the study. The proportion of adverse events and admission to intensive care unit (ICU) was higher in the low nutritional status group than in the high nutritional status group (P < 0.05). ROC curve analysis revealed an area under curve (AUC) of 0.628 for PNI score and the cut-off value of PNI was 37. The free-event rates determined by KM analysis were significantly lower in the low nutritional status compared to the high nutritional status (P < 0.05). Adjusted multivariate analysis showed that PNI score was independently associated with favorable outcomes (HR: 2.66; 95% CI: 1.724-4.050, P < 0.001).

High PNI score at admission was associated with reduced in-hospitalization risk of adverse events in patients with PE. Additional enhancing nutritional status during hospitalization may help to prevent unfavorable prognosis in clinical practices.