Forewarning of preeclampsia
By Nathan Seppa
Scientists have found an early warning sign of preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication marked by high blood pressure. Pregnant women with too much of a protein called soluble endoglin in their blood have a heightened risk of preeclampsia, the researchers say.
Endoglin normally sits on the surface of blood vessels, where it plays a role in vessel dilation and facilitates blood flow. But endoglin can escape these moorings and dissolve in the blood.
Epidemiologist Richard J. Levine of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Md., and his colleagues tested stored second-trimester blood samples from 552 pregnant women. Of these, 72 had developed preeclampsia late in their pregnancies. Those women had blood concentrations of soluble endoglin that were nearly double those found in women who had uncomplicated pregnancies. The warning sign appeared 2 to 3 months before preeclampsia struck, the researchers report in the Sept. 7 New England Journal of Medicine.