Maternal plasma leptin concentration in pre eclampsia and its correlation with fetal cord concentration

ABSTRACT

Leptin is a 16KD a polypeptide hormone originally assumed to be produced only by adipose cells. It has an important role in reproduction. During pregnancy, maternal serum leptin concentrations are greater than those non pregnant women. Pre eclampsia is a serious complication diagnosed by hypertension, proteinuria and edema, Pre eclampsia is associated with dramatically enhanced plasma leptin, In this study that was carried out in Al Azhar University Maternal Hospital on 40 pregnant women that were classified into 2 groups Pre eclampsia and Normal control pregnant women. The 2 groups are matched to each other with respect to gestational age of the fetus at sampling, and BMI. The study showed that there was no significance difference between 2 groups with respect to either BMI or gestational age but with great significant statistical difference in birth weight between the infants of women with pre eclampsia [2718,75 +/- 117.74 gms] and those of normal pregnant women [3376.0 +/- 130,72 gms]. There were significance statistical difference of maternal plasma leptin-between 2 groups before delivery [44.99 +/- 10.0 ng/ml in pre eclamptic group and 34,9 +/- 9.34 ng/ml in normal pregnant group]. The leptin concentration was [5.5 +/- 1.7 ng/ml] [NV 2.5 - 8.5] in cord blood infants of the women with pre eclampsia but its concentration was 6.6 4/- 2.04 ng/ml] [NV 3.2 - 9.5 ng/ml] for normal pregnant women. There was strong positive correlation between maternal leptin and cord leptin concentration for women with pre eclampsia but not for normal pregnant women, in conclusion, the study has shown that, independent of the maternal BMI, the maternal leptin concentration increases in pre eclampsia and positively correlates with the cord blood leptin concentration