Evaluation of the quantitative fetal fibronectin test and PAMG-1 test for the prediction of spontaneous preterm birth in patients with signs and symptoms suggestive of preterm labor

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this study is to compare the qualitative fFN test at 50 ng/ml threshold to novel methods for assessing risk of imminent sPTB in women with symptoms of preterm labor (PTL): (1) quantitative fetal fibronectin (qfFN) at four thresholds: 10, 50, 200, and 500 ng/ml; and (2) qualitative PAMG-1 test.Study design: Consecutive patients presenting with singleton pregnancies, signs of PTL, gestational age 23.1–34.6, intact membranes, no coitus within 24 h, and cervical dilation ≤3 cm. fFN was performed as standard of care, while clinicians were blinded to the qfFN and PAMG-1 test results. qfFN accuracy was evaluated at four thresholds of 10, 50, 200, and 500 ng/ml for its ability to predict imminent spontaneous preterm delivery (sPTD) ≤ 7 and ≤14 d from the time of sample collection. The PAMG-1 test was evaluated based on its qualitative result for the same delivery endpoints.Results: Seventy-two patients were analyzed. Fifty-seven percent of patients had an fFN concentration of <10 ng/ml fFN; 75% < 50 ng/ml; 92% < 200 ng/ml; 97% < 500 ng/ml. The SN, SP, PPV, and NPV for fFN at each of the four cutoffs for sPTB ≤7 d: 10 ng/ml: 67%, 58%, 6%, 98%; 50 ng/ml: 67%, 77%, 11%, 98%; 200 ng/ml: 33%, 93%, 17%, 97%; 500 ng/ml: 0%, 97%, 0%, 96%. The PAMG-1 test was positive in 7% of patients. SN, SP, PPV, and NPV for PAMG-1 for sPTD ≤7 d were 67%, 96%, 40%, and 99%, respectively.Conclusion: Compared with qfFN, the PAMG-1 test is a better predictor of spontaneous delivery within 7 d while maintaining a very high negative predictive value. The PAMG-1 test is an easy-to-use bedside test that provides rapid results, does not require a speculum examination, can be used after vaginal exam and coitus and does not require specialized equipment to analyze results. As to be expected, compared with the conventional cutoff of fFN (50 ng/ml), a higher fFN cutoff of 200 ng/ml does seem to increase the PPV of the test, but this comes at a cost to the fFN test’s SN and NPV, rendering it of little to no advantage in clinical practice.