ABSTRACT
Human placenta synthesizes bioactive corticotropin releasing factor(CRF), a 41 amino acid peptide, which displays identical immunological, biological, and chemical characteristics to hypothalamic CRF. Placental CRF enters the maternal circulation and stimulates release of local placental prostaglandin E2 and F2alpha that have a central role in the mechanisms controlling uterine contractility and cervical softening. A large number of clinical investigators has suggested that placental CRF may be involved in mechanisms leading to labor. As well as CRF`s rises in term pregnancy, maternal serum CRF levels are also elevated in pregnancies complicated by preterm labor. So the clinical use of maternal serum CRF levels as a predictor of preterm labor was proposed. Therefore, we have carried out a prospective study on the efficacy of maternal serum CRF levels in diagnosis of preterm labor. In this study, the subjects consisted of 30 women admitted for the treatment of preterm labor and another 30 women with normal pregnancies between 28 and 36 completed weeks of gestation, and their serum CRF levels were assessed. The results were as follows: 1. In both groups, serum CRF levels were increased as being associated to gestational ages, especially in late pregnancy. 2. In a comparative study between two groups, the serum CRF values of pregnancies complicated by preterm labor were significantly higher than their values of control group(p0.05).