Pattern of platelet indices as a potential marker for prediction of preeclampsia among pregnant women attending at wachemo university nigist eleni mohammed memorial referral hospital, hosanna, southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Preeclampsia is the most significant health risk for the pregnant women and the fetus. Inconsistency in reports and shortage of literature in Ethiopia regarding platelet pattern among preeclampsia group and normal pregnancy necessitates the current study. Objective: To evaluate the pattern of platelet indices for prediction of preeclampsia among pregnant women attending at Wachemo University Nigest Eleni Mohammed Memorial Referral Hospital, Hosanna, from January to April 2019. Method: A comparative cross-sectional study was conducted on a total of 180 pregnant women who attended anti- natal care follow up from January to April 2019. EDTA anti coagulated venous blood sample was analyzed usingMind ray BC-3000Plus, Shenzhen, china. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test, Kruskal-Wallis H test in conjunction with the Mann Whitney U test, Post-hock test supplemented with Benforeni, receiver operating characteristics curve, Spear Man rank order correlation was done using SPSS version21 software. A P-value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Result:The platelet and platelatecrit tends to decrease with severity of preeclampsia. While mean platelet volume and platelet distribution width were significantly, increased with severity of preeclampsia (P<0.001). Mean arterial pressure showed statistically significant positive correlations with platelet distribution width (rho =0.731, p˂0.001), and mean platelet volume (rho=0.674, p˂0.001). Platelet distribution width was found to be the best parameter for predicting preeclampsia (AUC=0.986; 95%CI (0.970, 1). Conclusion: Platelet indices such as platelet count, mean platelet volume, platelet distribution width and platelatecrit were identified as good candidate markers for prediction of preeclampsia in pregnant women. Serial analysis of these indices at different trimesters of pregnancy should be carried out in future research to evaluate whether it is possible to predict preeclampsia before second half of pregnancy.