Assessment of cervicovaginal vascular endothelial growth factor in predicting preterm delivery.

Abstract

The aim of this study is to estimate the effectiveness of cervicovaginal vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in predicting preterm delivery. Cervicovaginal VEGF was measured in 30 women who presented symptoms or signs of threatened preterm labor and the control group of 30 healthy pregnant patients by enzyme-linked immunoassay. There was no statistically significant difference in cervicovaginal VEGF values between the threatened preterm labor group and the control group (P > 0.05). Similarly, no statistically significant difference was observed in terms of cervical length and cervicovaginal VEGF values between preterm and term-delivered groups (P > 0.05). Additionally, there was no correlation between cervicovaginal VEGF values and cervical length (P > 0.05) between the threatened preterm labor and the control groups. No correlation was found between cervicovaginal VEGF values and the preterm delivery. However, we believe that the role of VEGF in preterm delivery needs to be investigated further in well-designed studies with larger samples.