Early warning blood test could flag severe pregnancy complication before it's fatal

July 4th, 2024

Cardiovascular conditions and preeclampsia are among the leading contributors to pregnancy-related death in Georgia, according to the state Department of Public Health. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)

A blood test that assists in the identification of risk factors for a severe and potentially life-threatening complication of pregnancy is becoming more available in Georgia after a recent United States Food and Drug Administration approval.

The biomarker test screens for signs of severe preeclampsia.

Preeclampsia is a disorder of high blood pressure that typically occurs after the 20th week of pregnancy or after childbirth. The condition affects 5 to 7 percent of all pregnancies, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And patients who go on to develop severe features of preeclampsia can become dangerously sick.

With FDA approval, doctors can now use the test for increased insight into patients already identified as higher risk.

“What’s so wonderful about this test is we finally now have a biomarker test that can help predict which of the patients who already have a hypertensive disorder in pregnancy have a higher chance of developing severe features of preeclampsia in the next two weeks,” said Dr. Padmashree “Champa” Woodham, Augusta University Medical College of Georgia professor of Maternal-Fetal Medicine.

“And then we can increase our surveillance for those patients before they develop a severe feature or an adverse outcome, so we are not far into the disease process before something happens.”

The hospital-administered test is only available to patients between 23 and 34 weeks of pregnancy who also have a hypertensive disorder or other risk factors.

“We have a better chance of intervening and, as a result, a better chance of catching these women and making a plan of what their delivery timing will be and how to manage those patients before they become really sick,” Woodham said, “which patients we need to be seeing more often, need to draw more labs on. And which ones need to stay in the hospital because they’re at higher risk.”

Without intervention, preeclampsia can progress to organ damage, seizure, stroke, preterm birth and other problems, even death.

Black women are at much higher risk for preeclampsia than white women.

Cardiovascular conditions and preeclampsia are among the leading contributors to pregnancy-related death in Georgia, according to the state Department of Public Health.

A state maternal mortality review board has found that 85% of pregnancy-related deaths in Georgia are preventable.

While the biomarker tests are approved for use in the U.S., Woodham said there is a need for more Georgia laboratories capable of analyzing them.

Currently, any Georgia hospitals that administer the tests would have to send them to labs out of state, a process that can delay the results for up to several days.

Woodham said Wellstar MCG in Augusta is working to purchase its own lab equipment in the hopes of providing in-state analysis of the biomarker tests to OB-GYNs statewide.