A new blood test has an 80% accuracy in predicting preterm preeclampsia, according to a study published today, Feb. 12, in the journal Nature Medicine.
The condition, which results in over 70,000 maternal deaths and 500,000 fetal deaths each year worldwide, has long been hard to predict. This makes proactive treatment challenging, according to one of the study’s lead authors.
“The placenta is not something we can biopsy during pregnancy, but we believe it is integral to developing preeclampsia,” said Dr. Swati Shree, a UW Medicine OB-GYN and co-corresponding author of the paper. “Doctors do look at clinical risk factors, which can work reasonably well, but it still misses a fair amount of people.”
Preeclampsia is a pregnancy complication characterized by high blood pressure (hypertension) or organ dysfunction. It…