Portable Home-Use Triglyceride Meter Demonstrates Good Agreement With Plasma Laboratory Measures During Pregnancies...

Fasting and postprandial triglycerides (PPTG) in obese pregnancies may be stronger predictors of fetal overgrowth than glucose, making them a potential novel treatment target. Measurement of TG currently requires venipuncture in a laboratory, a barrier to collecting repeated measures to understand contributions to fetal growth. Our aim was to evaluate agreement between fingerstick capillary TG using an FDA-approved point-of-care (POC) meter and venipuncture plasma TG (vTG) during fasting and controlled fed conditions within pregnant women.

Pregnant patients (n = 35) with obesity alone (59%) or GDM (41%) (BMI 33 ± 4 kg/m²) had fasting vTG and POC TG collected, within ≤ 5 min apart at 25 ± 9 weeks' gestation. A subset (n = 23) had PPTG collected at 1- and 2-h after a controlled breakfast test meal (35 ± 2 weeks). Two-way mixed effects intraclass correlations (ICC) and Bland-Altman plots determined agreement. Paired t-tests were used to compare vTG and POC TG (mean ± SD).

Sixty-eight paired fasting TG and 52 paired 1- and 2-h PPTG were collected. Fasting vTG were slightly lower than POC TG (181 ± 66 vs. 192 ± 81 mg/dL), as were 1-h (225 ± 65 vs. 260 ± 76) and 2-h PPTG (227 ± 70 vs. 249 ± 77; p < 0.05 all). The ICC for fasting TG was 0.86 [95% CI: 0.78, 0.91] and 0.84 [95% CI: 0.32, 0.94] for PPTG. The mean % difference (vTG minus POC TG) was -4.6% ± 17.8% for fasting TG and -12.0% ± 12.0% for PPTG.

These data suggest good agreement between vTG and POC TG in fasting and PPTG during pregnancies complicated by obesity and GDM. Our findings support the novel approach to utilising a POC TG meter, similar to a glucometer, to conveniently discern the contribution of TG and their potential targets in optimising fetal growth in pregnant patients with obesity and GDM.