Simple test to predict if pregnant women will give birth prematurely
Babies born early run a greater risk of serious complications. The researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy have now developed a method to predict if pregnant women with preterm contractions will give birth within seven days. The method offers new possibilities to delay delivery and prepare care for the premature baby.
Delivery before 37 full weeks, so-called premature birth, is the biggest problem in perinatal medicine today, as it increases the risk of the child being seriously ill in the short and long term. The problem is that only 30 per cent of women who come in with early contractions actually give birth before full term.
Researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy studied 142 pregnant women who came to Sahlgrenska University Hospital/Östra during the years 1995-2005 with early contractions without rupture of the membranes. As a result of the study, the researchers have developed a new method that can predict with high precision if a pregnant woman with contractions will give birth within seven days.
“To have time to give the woman cortisone, which speeds up the development of the fetal lungs, it is common practice to delay the delivery by a couple of days with the help of tocolytic treatment. Being able to predict if a woman who comes to the hospital with preterm contractions will actually give birth early and thereby requires follow-up and possible treatment is therefore very important,” according to Panagiotis Tsiartas, researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy and specialist at the Obstetrical and Gynecological Clinic at SU/Östra.
The method is based on a newly developed blood test that looks at two specific proteins in the woman’s blood combined with an already established examination that uses ultrasound to measure the length of the cervix.
“Statistically, the method can predict with 75 to 80 per cent accuracy if a woman will give birth early,” said Panagiotis Tsiartas.
“We will need to conduct further studies before the method can be used in full, but if the results of these studies are good, the test will hopefully lead to new types of treatments to prevent premature birth and treat the serious complications resulting from it,” Panagiotis Tsiartas continued.
The article “Prediction of spontaneous preterm delivery in women with threatened preterm labour: a prospective cohort study of multiple proteins in maternal serum” is published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
Link to article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-0528.2012.03328.x/pdf
Contact:
Panagiotis Tsiartas, research partner at the Perinatal Laboratory and specialist at the Obstetrical and Gynecological Clinic SU/Östra
+46 (0)73-7215435
tsiartaspanos@gmail.com
Bo Jacobsson, Docent at the Institute of Clinical Sciences at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, and Senior Physician at the Sahlgrenska University Academy/Östra
+46 (0)70-5600162
Bo.jacobsson@obgyn.gu.se
Press Officer
Krister Svahn
Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg
46766-18 38 69
4631-786 3869
krister.svahn@sahlgrenska.gu.se
The Sahlgrenska Academy is the faculty of health sciences at the University of Gothenburg. Education and research are conducted within the fields of pharmacy, medicine, odontology and health care sciences. About 4,000 undergraduate students and 1,200 postgraduate students are enrolled at Sahlgrenska Academy. Around 1,400 people work at the Sahlgrenska Academy. 850 of them are researchers and/or teachers. 2009 Sahlgrenska Academy had a turnover of 2,100 million SEK.
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