Maternal Serum Mid-Trimester Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin, Alfa-Fetoprotein and Unconjugated Estriol in Predicting Preeclampsia

M. Tosun, , H. Celik, M. B. Çetinkaya,

Abstract: To evaluate the role of mid-trimester total human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), alfa-fetoprotein (AFP) and unconjugated estriol (uE3) in the prediction of pre-eclampsia. We carried out a retrospective analysis of hCG, AFP, uE3 levels taken between 16-18 weeks of gestation from 278 women. None of these women had abnormal karyotype fetuses or malformations. The levels of maternal serum hCG, AFP, uE3 were compared between 20 severe pre eclampsia, 96 mild pre-eclampsia and 112 controls. Levels of hCG in the second trimester triple test result from women who later developed severe pre-eclampsia were significantly elevated than control group (p=0.001, p<0.01). The mean gestational age at birth and mean birth weight of patients whose hCG were higher than 2 MoM (n=32) in triple test were significantly lower than patients with hCG equal or lower than 2 MoM (p<0.01). Increased hCG was found to be significantly associated with severe pre-eclampsia developing later in pregnancy.
Keywords: Second trimester serum screening, hCG, pre-eclampsia