Accuracy of Combined Measure of Serum Uric Acid and Beta Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (β hCG) Versus Serum Beta Human Chorionic Gonadotropin Alone as Prognostic Indicators of Pregnancy Outcome of Preeclampsia

Background: Measurement of variety of biological, biochemical and biophysical markers in pregnancy implicated in the pathophysiology of preeclampsia have been proposed to predict its development.

Aim: To evaluate the accuracy of combined measure of maternal serum uric acid level and quantitative serum beta hCG versus serum beta hCG alone as prognostic indicators of pregnancy outcome among preeclamptic patients at the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa.

Methods: This is a hospital based prospective case control study by systematic sampling selection. The two groups comprised of 100 consecutive patients each, one with pre-eclampsia (study group) and the other without pre-eclampsia (control) admitted for management into the antenatal ward and labour ward over the seven-month period of the study. The values of their serum uric acid and beta hCG levels were evaluated on admission and followed up. Data entry and statistical analysis was done using statistical package for social science (windows version 22.0. SPSS Inc; Chicago, USA). Level of significance was set at P < 0.05.

Results: The mean quantitative serum β hCG level amongst the subjects (26776.6 ± 19590.5) was statistically significantly higher (p < 0.001) than the mean quantitative serum β hCG level amongst the control (7973.6 ± 4193.7). The prognostic accuracy in predicting pregnancy outcomes were: HELLP syndrome (0.33, 0.44), Eclampsia (0.50, 0.39), Acute Renal Failure (0.44, 0.33), IUGR (0.43, 0.39), IUFD (0.38, 0.27) and Birth Asphyxia (0.49, 0.38) respectively for combined measure of serum uric acid and serum β hCG, and serum β hCG alone.

Conclusion: Serum β hCG levels remains a useful prognostic indicator for feto-maternal outcome in preeclamptic women. However, combined measure of serum uric acid and serum β hCG level in prognosticating pregnancy outcome in preeclamptic women was shown to have a better accuracy than serum β hCG.