Pregnancy-induced low serum Ficolin levels may underlie the development of Pre-eclampsia and predict it

Abstract

Objectives: Estimation of serum ficolin-2 and -3 for normotensive pregnant women to find a relation between ficolin levels and devel- opment of PE. Patients & Methods: Primigravida attending the clinic prior to the 12th gestational week underwent blood pressure (BP) measurements and gave blood sample for estimation of fasting blood glucose (FBG) and ELISA estimation of serum ficolin. Enrolled women were asked to attend 4-weekly for BP measurement; 59 PE women (Group PE), 59 normotensive pregnant women (Group NT) and 59 non-pregnant women (Group NP) were enrolled. Results: At time of PE diagnosis, all pregnant women had higher BP than their baseline measures, with significantly higher measures in PE women. Serum ficolin-2 levels were significantly lower in preg- nant than NP women and in PE than NT women, while serum ficol- in-3 levels were significantly lower in PE than NT women. Devel- opment of PE was positively associated with higher BMI, FBG and BP, while was negatively correlated with ficolin levels. Regression analysis defined low serum ficolin levels as negative predictors for PE development and serum ficolin-2 level Conclusion: Pregnancy has deleterious effect on complement path- way manifested by lower serum ficolin. Low serum ficolin-2 early in pregnancy is a sensitive screening test for pregnant women and can exclude PE development with 100% negative predictive value at level