| Summary: | Background
Preeclampsia is one of the most common pregnancy complications, which is one of the major causes of fetal and maternal mortality.
Objective
To compare the serum Brain Natriuretic Peptide (BNP) level in patients with severe preeclampsia and normal pregnancy and investigate associated cardiovascular complications.
Materials and Methods
This case-control study was performed on 94 women with a singleton pregnancy (severe preeclampsia and normal pregnancy) at Imam Reza Hospital in Mashhad, Iran. The venous blood samples were collected to evaluate the serum BNP level. All patients were subjected to echocardiography performed by a single cardiologist.
Results
The mean pro-BNP levels were 480.36
±
754.52 and 67.46
±
106.24 pg/dL in the severe preeclampsia and normal pregnancy patients, respectively (p
<
0.001). However, adjusted BNP for maternal and gestational age was not different in the two groups (ANCOVA, p = 0.69). Furthermore, the two study groups showed no
significant difference in terms of the cardiac parameters, including ejection fraction (EF), left ventricle end-diastolic and -systolic diameters (LVEDD and LVESD, respectively), tricuspid annular
plane systolic excursion (TAPSE), and ratio of the early transmitral flow velocity to the early diastolic tissue velocity (E/Em). However,
the serum BNP level showed a significant correlation with EF (r = -0.39, p = 0.008), TAPSE (r = -0.47, p = 0.001), and E/Em ratio (r = 0.48, p = 0.001) in patients with severe preeclampsia.
Conclusion
It seems that BNP can be used as a predictor for some of the main cardiac functional indices (i.e., E/Em, EF, and TAPSE) in severe preeclampsia patients.
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