Pre-eclampsia is a hypertensive pregnancy disorder and a very serious complication for the pregnant woman, but also for her unborn baby. It is always accompanied by high blood pressure above 140/90 mmHg and protein in the urine. Oedema (water retention) in the legs and feet, fingers and face are also common. As a result of all these symptoms, the function of the placenta can be impaired. Therefore, a Pre-eclampsia not only affects the health of the mother, but also the unborn child. This disease is treacherous because it can occur even after the birth and because it sometimes takes a fulminant course. This is why early detection as part of prenatal care or postnatal care is so important for doctors and midwives.
It is therefore important not only to recognise this pregnancy-related illness at an early stage, but also to prevent it as early as possible for pregnant women who are particularly at risk. before of the disease. Until now, this has been done rather unspecifically by describing risk factors such as severe obesity, diabetes, previous multiple pregnancies or a very young or old age of the pregnant women. However, the majority of pregnant women with these risk factors actually develop the disease not of pre-eclampsia. As part of prenatal diagnostics, a statistical risk is calculated for many women. However, even this calculated value does not mean that a pregnant woman will actually develop pre-eclampsia.
Now the University Medical Centre Freiburg presented a new approach to predicting pre-eclampsia - namely the use of the so-called troponin test. It is intended to help recognise the risk of pre-eclampsia in pregnant women with or without risk factors in good time and to monitor and support women at risk in a targeted manner.
Troponin tests have long been used in the acute diagnosis of suspected heart attacks. Troponin T is a protein from the heart muscle cells. If the cells are destroyed, e.g. during a heart attack, troponin is released into the blood. The troponin level is therefore a valuable indicator of damage to the heart muscles.
The Freiburg team of scientists has now been able to show that the troponin level in a pregnant woman's blood also corresponds closely to the risk of developing pre-eclampsia at a later stage. The researchers assume that this relatively simple test can be used to predict severe courses of the disease very well, so that timely and targeted prevention will be possible in future.
In the next step, the researchers now want to re-examine their findings in a study and combine the data from the troponin test with other risk factors. The safety of pregnant women and their unborn children could therefore be further increased.
