Study of Coagulation Profile in Patients of Pregnancy Induced Hypertension-A Single Centric Prospective Study

Abstract

Background: Present study was done to study the abnormalities in platelet, PT (prothrombin time) and APTT (activated partial thromboplastin time) in patients of PIH, to compare them with the results of normal pregnant females of 3 rd trimester and to correlate them with the severity of PIH. Materials and Methods: 100 normotensive and 100 hypertensive 3 rd trimester pregnant females formed the control and study group respectively. Platelet count, PT and APTT were performed by automatic analyzers. Results: Comparison between study and control group showed statistically significant (p<0.001) decrease in platelet count and increase in PT and APTT. Platelet count significantly decreased (p<0.05) with increasing severity except between gestational hypertension and mild preeclampsia. There is high prevalence of thrombocytopenia in preeclampsia (57%) and eclampsia (100%) cases. PT and APTT were prolonged only in cases of severe preeclampsia and eclampsia with platelet count <1 lac/cmm. Prolonged PT was seen in 28% and 37.5% cases and prolonged APTT in 2.8% and 25% cases of severe preeclampsia and eclampsia respectively. Conclusion: Significant thrombocytopenia is seen in PIH and degree increases with increasing severity. PT and APTT are also increased significantly in study group but do not differ with severity and are seen to be prolonged only in cases of thrombocytopenia. Mean PT and APTT fall in normal reference range in all groups, but increase from lower to upper normal limit as severity increases.