UCSF

Objective

To evaluate if mid-pregnancy immune and growth-related molecular factors predict preterm birth (PTB) with and without (±) preeclampsia.

Study design

Included were 400 women with singleton deliveries in California in 2009-2010 (200 PTB and 200 term) divided into training and testing samples at a 2:1 ratio. Sixty-three markers were tested in 15-20 serum samples using multiplex technology. Linear discriminate analysis was used to create a discriminate function. Model performance was assessed using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC).

Results

Twenty-five serum biomarkers along with maternal age <34 years and poverty status identified >80% of women with PTB ± preeclampsia with best performance in women with preterm preeclampsia (AUC = 0.889, 95% confidence interval (0.822-0.959) training; 0.883 (0.804-0.963) testing).

Conclusion

Together with maternal age and poverty status, mid-pregnancy immune and growth factors reliably identified most women who went on to have a PTB ± preeclampsia.