New insights into the etiology of pre-eclampsia

Pre-eclampsia is a pregnancy-specific syndrome of unknown etiology, defined by clinical findings of elevated blood pressure combined with proteinuria and oedema. The decidual portion of the spiral arteries of women who later develop pre-eclampsia does not undergo the normal pregnancy-induced remodelling that converts these vessels to high volume-low resistance conduits. We have postulated that this failure leads to vascular spasm, restricted blood flow, placental ischaemia and the release of toxic substances that enter the maternal circulation, resulting in multi-organ disease. The complex and interwoven pathways of endocrine, paracrine and autocrine factors appear to result in a vicious cycle of endothelial cell dysfunction, which is expressed clinically as pre-eclampsia.