Abstract
Background
Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy impact approximately 10% of pregnancies worldwide. During pregnancy, there are changes in the expression of coagulation and fibrinolytic proteins that promote clot formation. While a normal pregnancy is associated with increased coagulation, women with preeclampsia experience even greater coagulation. Aim of the study: To assess the potential of blood coagulation parameters and platelet indices as predictors for preeclampsia.
Material and Methods
The study included 97 age-matched pregnant women, 78 of which had gestational hypertension and 19 had preeclampsia and its severe forms. The study compared demographic data, clinical characteristics, blood clotting parameters and platelet measurements of all participants.
Results
Patients with preeclampsia had slightly elevated coagulation parameters such as activated partial thromboplastin time, prothrombin time activity percentage, and prothrombin time. We found a statistically significant difference in prothrombin time activity percentage (106.6 ± 3.457; 95.07 ± 2.165, p = 0.0166). However, patients with preeclampsia had significantly lower levels of international normalized ratio (0.975 vs. 1.048, p = 0.019), fibrinogen (314.2 mg/dL vs. 344.5 mg/dL, p = 0.0247), and platelet count (234.2 ± 19.59 × 104/µL vs. 280.8 ± 8.63 × 104/µL, p = 0.0214) than women with gestational hypertension. We found no statistically significant differences between the groups regarding mean platelet volume and platelet distribution width.
Conclusions
Platelet count is a promising method for diagnosing preeclampsia due to its simplicity. Mean platelet volume, activated partial thromboplastin time, and prothrombin time increased in women with preeclampsia, indicating a hypercoagulable state in the third trimester in these patients. Prothrombin time activity percentage increased significantly and could be a potentially parameter in predicting preeclampsia.