ABSTRACT
Background: The uterine artery Doppler has potentials for screening for complications of impaired placentation. The purpose of study was to assess the role of uterine artery color Doppler waveform analysis in second trimester for the prediction of preeclampsia in a high-risk pregnancy between 18-24 weeks of gestation.Methods: 100 women with moderate or high-risk factors for developing preeclampsia reporting to Obstetrics and Gynaecology department of Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, Chandigarh were enrolled for present study. Transabdominal uterine artery doppler measurements was done at 18-24weeks of gestation in these patients. Doppler . The Doppler indices generated automatically from the machine , the Pulsatility Index (PI), Resistance Index (RI) , presence or absence of diastolic notch and S/D Ratio were recorded, and average was calculated.Results: Out of 100 patients there were 46 primigravidas with no additional risk factors, 22 pateints with two or more risk factors and there were no patients who had three or more risk factors in present study population. Preeclampsia is seen more commonly in primigravida and primigravida is considered as moderate risk factor for preeclampsia. It was found that an elevated second trimester uterine artery RI was significantly associated with developing preeclampsia later in pregnancy. The sensitivity and specificity of uterine artery Doppler velocimetry were found to be 84% and 55% respectively. Receiver operator characteristics (ROC) curves were created to demonstrate the prognostic value of RI and PI of uterine artery doppler indices at 18-24 weeks of gestation for the development preeclampsia. In addition, there were statistically significant positive correlations between mean RI of uterine artery doppler study and patients who developed preeclampsia. With a sensitivity of 84.21% it could identify 31% of the cases of preeclampsia at a false positive rate of 44.4%.Conclusions: Uterine artery doppler study can be used as a predictor of moderate strength for preeclampsia.