An Economic Analysis of Immediate Delivery and Expectant Monitoring in Women With Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy, Between 34 and 37 Weeks of Gestation (HYPITAT-II)

Abstract

(BJOG. 2017;124:453–461) An economic analysis of the previously reported HYPITAT-II study was undertaken to assess the relative costs of delivering a preterm fetus versus expectant monitoring in women with nonsevere hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. The HYPAT-II study included 703 pregnant women in the Netherlands between 34 and 37 weeks gestation with preterm nonsevere hypertensive disorders. They were randomly allocated to either immediate delivery upon diagnosis (n=352) or expectant monitoring of the mother and fetus (n=351). The HYPAT-II study found that expectant monitoring was the more clinically effective strategy as it resulted in significantly fewer cases of respiratory distress syndrome in the infant with a relatively small impact on maternal health. This current study was performed simultaneously with the HYPITAT-II trial with the goal of determining which of the 2 treatments was more cost effective.