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Objective: To assess the feasibility and safety of a physiotherapy protocol applied to pregnant women with preeclampsia.Methods: Randomized, controlled, single-blind feasibility study, with 24 hospitalized pregnant women with preeclampsia. The intervention group received one session of the physiotherapy. The control group remained under the routine care of the hospital. The primary outcomes were Doppler velocimetry, cardiotocography, and maternal-fetal hemodynamics. Secondary outcomes were pain and anxiety assessed before and after the interventions. A mixed effects linear regression model was used, and the data were compared with the level of significance at 5%.Results: The baseline characteristics of the participants were homogeneous between groups. Resistance index of the Middle Cerebral Artery (MAC) and Umbilical Artery (UA) and cardiotocography did not change significantly. The systolic blood pressure (SBP) increased 4.90 mmHg in the control group and 0.22 mmHg in the intervention group. The diastolic blood pressure (DBP) increased 1.34 mmHg in the control group and decreased 0.40 mmHg in the intervention group. The middle bood pressure (MBP) increased 4.66 mmHg in the control group while there was a decrease of 0.09 mmHg in the intervention group, without statistical difference. Heart rate (HR) decreased 0.94 bpm in the control group; whereas, in the intervention group, there was an increase of 6.30 bpm. The pain reduced clinically 2 points after the intervention. The anxiety reduced clinically in both the groups (-1.26 in the intervention group and -2.17 in the control group).Conclusion: The protocol applied in the intervention group is feasible and safe for both mother and fetus. Both groups showed clinical reduction in the levels of anxiety; whereas, pain was clinically reduced in the intervention group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Preeclampsia is a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy specific, its pathophysiology is not fully understood, however placental ischemia is considered a key factor for the development of the disease. This inadequate vascularization may be related to changes in the concentration of angiogenic factors in the maternal circulation. Among them angiopoietin 1 (Ang-1) and angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2) and act during angiogenesis. Objective To investigate the predictive ability of Ang-1 and Ang-2 in pregnant women with preeclampsia. Patients and methods This is a case-control study linked to a prospective cohort of pregnant women, with mean gestational age of 23 weeks, consisting of 90 healthy pregnant women (GS) and 30 pregnant women with preeclampsia (PE). Plasma concentrations of Ang-1 and Ang-2 were determined using the ELISA method. Results In the comparison of Ang-1 concentrations between GS and PE there was no statistical difference between the groups ( P = 0.604) the same was observed for Ang-2 ( P = 0919). Regarding the reason Ang-1/Ang-2, also no statistical difference ( P = 0.282). The predictive ability of the biomarkers was evaluated by ROC curve and the area under the curve for Ang-1, Ang-2 and Ang-1 ratio/Ang-2 were 0.47, 0.50 and 0.56 respectively. Conclusion Our study found no significant difference in the concentrations of Ang-1 and Ang-2 compared the PE group with the control group. And the ROC curves show that these biomarkers were not effective as preeclampsia predictors in our sample [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Dysfunction of l -arginine/NO endothelial system is one of the factors that contribute to preeclampsia development. The supplementation with l -arginine could be used as treatment and/or prevention for this disorder. Objective To supplement pregnant women with preeclampsia and determine whether endogenous biomarkers can indicate which pregnant women will respond or not supplementation with l -arginine. Patients and methods We analyzed 56 pregnant women diagnosed with preeclampsia, divided into two groups 39 without supplementation and 17 who underwent supplementation with 3 g l -arginine orally for 10 days. Results The concentrations of the inflammation markers IL-6 and CRP were lower at the beginning of the supplementation when compared with the end of supplementation IL-6 (4.08 ± 3.74 vs. 10.67 ± 9.03, P = 0,03); PCR (5.52 ± 2.72 vs. 7.00 ± 3.37, P = 0.04). For other biomarkers analyzed we did not observe significant changes or the comparison between groups (sVCAM: P = 0.74; ADMA: P = 0.76; endoglin: P = 0 28; CD40: P = 0.22 and sFlt-1: P = .35) or between the beginning and the end of supplementation (sVCAM: P = 0.53; ADMA: P = 0.89; endoglin: P = 0.15; CD40: P = 0.53 and sFlt-1: P = 0.55). Conclusion The quantification of biomarkers showed that the participants were not responsive to supplementation with l -arginine since there was no change in the concentration thereof, or in the clinical and laboratory findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]