Role of Urinary Albumin in the Prediction of Preeclampsia.

ABSTRACT

The prospective study was conducted at the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology of Sir Salimullah Medical College & Mitford Hospital and at the Department of Cell & Molecular Biology, Research Division, BIRDEM, during the period of Jan 2003 to July 2004. To explore a suitable biochemical marker to predict the future development of preeclampsia (PE), total 119 pregnant women at their 10-14 weeks of pregnancy were selected. Urinary albumin was measured in these subjects and they were followed up to the term for the possible development of PE. The data were analyzed by grouping the subjects into the PE group and control group. Out of 119 subjects 56 were primigravida and 63 were multigravida. From the total subjects 10 developed PE (04 primigravida and 06 multigravida), which shows a prevalence of about 8.4%. The PE group showed a relatively higher value of Albumin Creatinine Ratio (ACR) as compared to control. 63 subjects had microalbuminuria out of which 8 developed PE. The sensitivity of ACR in predicting the development of PE was 80%, specificity 49.54%, Positive pridictive value (PPV) 12.69% and Negitive pridictive value (NPV) 96.42%. It may be concluded that early pregnancy levels of microalbuminuria can be used as predictors of preeclampsia with high negative predictive value.