ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Alireza Ehsanbakhsh , Nasrin Khorashadizadeh and Mohamad Bohairaee
Department of Radiology, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Iran.
J. Pure Appl. Microbiol., 2016, 10 (3): 1971-1976
© The Author(s). 2016
Received: 19/05/2016 | Accepted: 03/07/2016 | Published: 30/09/2016
Abstract

The recent development of high-resolution ultrasonography has provided the best opportunity to measure intima-media thickness and also arterial wall thickness in the peripheral arteries in pregnant women especially those with pre-eclampsia. The present study aimed to determine resistance index (RI) and pulsatility index (PI) of uterine and renal arteries, as well as common carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) in pregnant women with pre-eclampsia using color Doppler ultrasonography and also to compare these parameters with healthy pregnant women. This case-control study was conducted on 50 consecutive Iranian women suffering from pre-eclampsia, selected from the patients referring to prenatal clinic for routine pregnancy check-up from April 2013 to March 2014. Also, 50 age- and gestational week-matched normotensive pregnant women were included as the control group. IMT of common carotid artery as well as RI and PI indices of uterine and renal artery were measured by color Doppler ultrasound. Comparing uterine RI in women with pre-eclampsia and healthy normotensive pregnant women showed higher RI in the former group (0.50 ± 0.07 versus 0.45 ± 0.09, p = 0.002). Also, uterine PI in women with pre-eclampsia was higher than the healthy group (0.84 ± 0.19 versus 0.71 ± 0.17, p = 0.005). The RI index of renal artery was 0.56 ± 0.08 in pre-eclampsia group and 0.55 ± 0.07 in healthy group with no statistically significant difference (p = 0.480). There was also no difference in PI index of renal artery between pre-eclampsia group and normotensive group (0.93 ± 0.23 versus 0.94 ± 0.19, p = 0.930). Comparing IMT of common carotid artery in pre-eclampsia group and control group showed significantly higher IMT in the former group (0.49 ± 0.06 versus 0.44 ± 0.07, p < 0.001). Increased common carotid IMT and also RI and PI indices of uterine artery are common findings in women with pre-eclampsia that can help to predict early and late pre-eclampsia and poor cardiovascular outcome. Changes in RI and PI renal artery may not be expected in pre-eclampsia that should be further assessed in future studies.

Keywords

Carotid Intima-Media Thickness; Pre-Eclampsia; Ultrasonography, Doppler, Color.

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© The Author(s) 2016. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.