Complicated eclampsia: fifteen years' experience in a referral medical center

The statistical study of a large number of eclamptic patients (n = 704), divided into five successive 3-year periods, was undertaken at the Hospital de Gineco-Obstetricia No. 2 del Centro Médico Nacional in Mexico City in orders to detect significant changes in therapeutic results and/or in the basic character of the disease, as it occurs in a large referral medical complex. The following variables were studied: maternal and perinatal deaths, obstetric profile, main clinical data of the eclamptic episode, frequency of cesarean operation, timing of delivery after admission, main therapeutic changes, frequency of complications in survivors of ante- and intrapartum eclampsia, and cause of death with associated complications. The study showed (1) a continuous increment in the number of cases from the first to the last period, (2) averages for maternal age (24.9 +/- 0.45 years) and for previous parity (1.7 +/- 0.19) unlike those commonly accepted, (3) a significant progression in the severity of the disease in recent years, (4) a frequency of 22.9% of important complications in survivors of ante- and intrapartum eclampsia, and (5) a very limited overall influence of some therapeutic changes on the final outcome of complicated eclampsia, and (6) the impossibility of improving morbidity figures significantly during the 15 years of the study. It was concluded that prevention, early diagnosis, and timely simple medical care offer the only perspective for true medical progress in this particular problem.