Cord Blood Erythropoietin Complicated By High Risk Pregnancies

Kim, Seock Won; Kim, Sa Jin; Lee, Gui Se Ra; Kwun, In; Lee, Jae Dong; Lee, Hyung Gun; Park, Jung Hui; Jin, Gi Hong; Shin, Jong Chul; Kim, Su Pyung

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
To investigate the relationship between umbilical plasma erythropoietin(epo) concentrations and umbilical cord pH in high risk pregnancies.
METHODS
We measured epo concentrations and gas in 103 cases of cord blood obtained from 88 cesarean section (15 of twin) composed of 39 cases of normal control (12 of normal twins), 45 cases of high risk pregnancies and 4 cases of unclassified group using an RIA kit from december,1998 to December, 1999. Statistical analysis was performed using the student's t test and regression analysis. P values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.
RESULTS
Umbilcal plasma epo concentrations revealed significant inverse correlation (P<0.05) with umbilical acidosis and cord blood epo levels, and it were significantly higher in GDM and IUGR than normal pregnancies (control: 1.60 1.15, n=39 versus GDM: 7.78 7.18, n=11 versus IUGR: 64.77 90.57 n=10, p<0.05), but 11 cases of fetal distress and 13 cases of preeclampsia did not differ significantly from umbilical plasma epo of normal control.
CONCLUSIONS
Elevated epo concentrations in cord blood indicate fetal hypoxia and It is significantly increased in IUGR and GDM, these findings show that cord blood epo may serve as a clinically useful marker for chronic fetal hypoxia.