A treatment for preeclampsia in pregnant women
Science Desk, April 27 (EFE)
An international team of researchers has successfully tested a blood filtration treatment that safely reduces levels of a placental protein (sFlt-1) associated with preeclampsia in pregnant women and lowers the high blood pressure associated with this condition.
Preeclampsia is a condition that can occur in the second half of pregnancy and lead to serious problems for both the mother and the baby. These include liver and kidney failure, pulmonary edema, intrauterine fetal growth restriction, and even maternal and fetal death.
Current treatments, which include corticosteroids to promote fetal lung maturation and magnesium sulfate to prevent seizures, are not effective in safely prolonging pregnancy in women who have the disease at a very early stage.
Childbirth remains the only definitive treatment and, although it relieves maternal symptoms, it exposes the fetus to complications of prematurity, especially when it occurs at 32 weeks of gestation or earlier.
The international team of researchers who conducted the study, which was published in the journal Nature Medicine this Monday, tested a circulatory system filtration technique called apheresis to remove the placental protein sFlt-1 from the mother’s blood and thus prevent the development of preeclampsia.
In tests conducted on three pregnant monkeys, each treatment reduced sFlt-1 levels by approximately half, and two of the three animals gave birth to healthy offspring; the third died from birth complications unrelated to the treatment.
After testing on monkeys, the authors tested the technique on five non-pregnant women and observed no adverse effects.
Effective in pregnant women
It was then used on 16 pregnant women with very early preeclampsia. Of these, 7 received one cycle of apheresis and 9 had several cycles of the treatment.
In women who received more than one course of treatment, sFlt-1 levels decreased by 16.7% and blood pressure dropped slightly. Both mothers and babies remained stable throughout.
Pregnancy continued for an average of 10 days after hospital admission for preeclampsia, during which participants received treatment, compared to 4 days for untreated women, and side effects were mild, the authors report.
The results of this pilot study “suggest that apheresis is safe and tolerable, and that the removal of sFlt-1 from the blood can help slow the progression of very early preeclampsia without harming the mother or the baby,” the authors, affiliated with universities in the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and the United States, emphasize.
The researchers acknowledge, however, that the treatment has been tested on a small sample and emphasize that further, larger controlled studies are needed to assess whether it is reliable for prolonging pregnancy and reducing the risk of premature birth.
