Evaluation of serum calcium and lipid profile in women with pre-eclampsia, eclampsia and normal pregnancy.

Introduction: Background & objective: Pre-eclampsia and eclampsia are the most common obstetrical complications during pregnancy. The objective of this work was to quantitate and find significance of serum calcium and lipid profile levels in pre-eclamptic and eclamptic pregnancy in comparison with normal pregnancy. Methods: Study includes 105 subjects divided into three groups. Estimation of Calcium, Triglycerides, Total-Cholesterol and HDL-C were analyzed by O-Cresolphthalein-Complexone, GPO-PAP, CHOD-PAP and Phosphotungstic acid precipitation method, using Erba Chem-5 plus semi-autoanalyser. Results: Mean serum calcium and HDL-C levels were significantly decreased in group-II and group-III in comparison to group-I,p<0.05. The mean triglyceride, VLDL-C and LDL-C levels were significantly increased in group-II as compared to group-I,p<0.05. There was no difference in the mean values of total-cholesterol between cases (group-II and group-III) and control (group-I),p>0.05; but the mean level of VLDL-C was higher in group-III in comparison to group-I,p<0.05. Non significant (p>0.05) difference was found in mean values of triglyceride and LDL-C in group-III cases in comparison to group-I. Interpretation & conclusion: Women having pre-eclampsia and eclampsia had low levels of serum calcium and disturbed lipid profile. These levels may have cause and effect relationship with these disorders.