Soon, 100 pc accurate test for pre-eclampsia

Thanks to a new test unveiled by scientists, doctors may soon be able to predict with certainty whether a pregnant woman will develop a potentially fatal condition called pre-eclampsia. Pre-eclampsia is a terminal medical disorder that appears in the late stages of pregnancy and is characterised by high blood pressure and excess protein in the urine. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic tested 300 women and Dr Vesna Garovic, an associate professor of medicine, assessed a test, which detects the shedding of kidney cells called podocytes in the urine. The team had previously found podocytes present in patients with pre-eclampsia when they gave birth. In this study, all the women who went on to develop pre-eclampsia had podocytes in their urine, while none of the 15 who went on to develop high blood pressure or the 44 healthy pregnant women did. Although carried out on small numbers of women, the researchers say the test is highly accurate for predicting pre-eclampsia and could alert doctors early to the problem. "A large number of the 1,500 women who call our helpline each year are terrified of becoming pregnant again because they have suffered pre-eclampsia, often with tragic results. Many do decide to go ahead with a new pregnancy anyway," the BBC quoted Ann Marie Barnard, chief executive of Action on Pre-Eclampsia as saying. "Any test which can predict whether they are going to get it again has to be welcomed - while it cannot stop the disease occurring, it would enable services to be more closely focused on them and more alert to signs of the disease developing," she added.