Maternal serum lipids in women with pre-eclampsia

Background: Evidence of increased oxidative stress due to endothelial dysfunction in pre-eclampsia has been well-established. Increase in the oxidative stress is associated with abnormal lipid profile. Aim: The aim of the study is to compare serum lipids in pre-eclamptic women and healthy pregnant women. Subjects and Methods: In this case-control study, blood samples were collected from 40 pregnant females diagnosed as pre-eclampsia and 80 normal pregnant females at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia between February 2009 and January 2010. We evaluated serum levels of total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglyceride in women with pre-eclampsia and those of women with normal pregnancies. Data was analyzed using SPSS for Windows (version 17.0, SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois, USA). The data is presented descriptively and test for significance was done using the student t-test for continous data. Results: Women with pre-eclampsia exhibited higher serum triglyceride levels compared with normal pregnant women (P < 0.01). Other measured serum lipids did not differ significantly in the two groups. Conclusion: We recommend that any pregnant female with higher serum triglyceride concentrations may be further investigated for pre-eclampsia. Further large scale multicenter studies are required to establish the use of measuring serum triglyceride levels to screen the pregnant females for pre-eclampsia.