Platelets, inflammation, and prediction of the hypertension disorders of pregnancy

Abstract

Objective. To assess the features of the platelets (PLTs) of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) and to determine whether they have a predictive value for the disorders during the preclinical stage.

Methods. This study included 461 HDPs and 827 normal pregnancies. Platelet counts were compared between the two groups by an independent samples t test; a Fisher's linear discriminant analysis and receiver operator characteristic curve were performed to analyze the diagnostic effects of the variables in developing HDP.

Results. Women with HDP had significantly higher PLT before the second trimester. When exceeding the cut-off, it had a specificity (SPE) of 81.67% (95% CI: 81.63%–81.72%) for predicting a HDP. The discriminant function had a sensitivity of 69.1 (95% CI: 69.04–69.16), a SPE of 73.60% (95% CI: 73.569–73.64), a positive prediction value of 61.32% (95% CI: 61.25–61.39), a negative prediction value of 79.93% (95% CI: 79.88–79.98), and 71.50% of gravidas were correctly classified.

Conclusion. These results show that HDP is associated with increased systemic inflammation as depicted by the PLT and white blood cells in gravidas. The discriminant function of blood cells in a mathematical model may be helpful for predicting a HDP in presymptomatic patients, however, which is not sufficiently to use in clinical practice; a prospective study about the predicting is still needed.

Keywords::

• Hypertensive disorders
• platelets
• inflammation
• prediction
• pregnancy

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the staff from our hospital laboratory for help with the data analyses and for providing the data on blood cell parameters. The authors are also grateful for help with the data regarding pregnancy characteristics provided by Mei Yuan and Cun-xia Liu. This work was supported by Guangdong natural science fund 2009-93073.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare report no conflicts of interest. The authors are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.