Relationship of Serum Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH) Level with Severity of Preeclampsia

Abstract

Preeclampsia is a pregnancy specific disease and associated with multisystem complications. This crosssectional study was carried out in the Department of Physiology, Dhaka Medical College (DMC), Dhakafrom January'14 to December'14 to assess the relationship between serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levelwith the severity of the disease in preeclampsia. For this purpose, a total number of 105 pregnant women atthird trimester (28-40 weeks) with age ranging from 18 to 35 years were selected from DMC Hospital,Dhaka. Among them, 70 pregnant women with preeclampsia were selected as study group (Group B) which wasfurther subdivided as mild preeclamptic women (Group B1) and severe preeclamptic women (Group B2)consisting of 35 subjects in each subgroup. Age matched 35 healthy pregnant women were considered ascontrol group (Group A) for comparison. Serum LDH level was estimated by continuous spectrophotometricmethod. In this study, serum LDH level showed positive correlation with progressive rise of blood pressure inthe study group. The frequency of symptoms and complications of preeclampsia were more in patients with LDH>600 U/L compared with those who had lower levels. The present study showed that high serum LDH levelpositively correlates with the severity of the disease in patients of preeclampsia.