Abstract
The objective was to assess the sensitivities and accuracies of Doppler ultrasound parameters in the second and third trimester of hypertensive pregnancies in determining perinatal outcomes. 1,054 pregnancies were retrospectively categorized into three groups (healthy pregnancies (HP, n = 988), pregnancies of hypertensive women (HypP, n = 30) and high-risk hypertension pregnancies (HRHypP, n = 36), depending on gestational hypertension as well as fetal birth weights and pregnancy outcomes. Systolic/diastolic ratio (S/D), resistance index (RI), pulsatility index (PI) of the bilateral uterine artery, umbilical artery and vein as well as venous flow velocity data were monitored by Doppler ultrasound. At 20–27 and 28–32 gestational weeks, uterine artery PIs and RIs were significantly higher in the HRHypP group than in the HP and HypP patients. At gestational weeks 20–27 and 28–32 left plus right PI data with cut-off values of 2.35 and 1.73 indicated a risk of stillbirth, premature pregnancy termination and a birth weight of less than 2,500 g with sensitivities of 94.4% and 93.1% as well as specificities of 95.2% and 90.1%, respectively.
Highlights
The maternal age and intrauterine growth restriction/retardation (IUGR) rates in the HRHypP patients were significant higher and the fetal birth weight as well as fetal length was significantly lower than in the HypP group, but there was no difference between the HypP and healthy pregnancies (HP) women (Table 1)
There was no significant difference between the indicated indexes in the HypP and HP groups, but the HRHypP group exhibited significantly higher values except for umbilical vein flow velocity, when the values were significantly lower (Table 2, Fig. 2)
We used combined left +right uterine artery PI/RI values to assess the prognosis and susceptibility of the fetus and found that abnormal left and right uterine artery PI values were correlated with a higher risk of stillbirth, premature pregnancy termination and a birth weight of less than 2,500 g, which is in agreement with previous reports[9,10,11,12,13]
Summary
The aim of this study was to observe and compare any differences between umbilical and uterine blood flows detected by Doppler ultrasound in healthy and gestational hypertension pregnancies
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