P 27 Comparison of cardiac function parameters measured longitudinally in pregnancies with late-onset preeclampsia and normotensive pregnancies

Introduction The preeclampsia (PE) syndrome almost certainly encompasses multiple disease entities. Cardiovascular dysfunction is well documented in early-onset (GA Objectives To compare repeated cardiac function measurements (stroke volume, cardiac output, and total vascular resistance) measured in normotensive pregnancies and pregnancies complicated with late-onset PE. Patients and methods The PEACH (PreEclampsia, Angiogenesis, Cardiac dysfunction and Hypertension) study is an ongoing longitudinal prospective study being conducted at two university hospitals in Copenhagen, Denmark. PEACH recruits women presenting to the obstetrics departments of these hospitals with signs of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) and follows them until the end of pregnancy with serial blood tests and repeated cardiac function measurements obtained using the USCOM-1A device. The study also follows normotensive pregnant women frequency matched to the women in the HDP group and assesses their cardiac function in gestational weeks 28, 35, 38 and 40. USCOM data on cardiac function are analyzed using linear mixed models that include a random personal effect (woman-specific effect), a time-dependent gestational age effect (a trend describing how normal cardiac function changes over the course of pregnancy) and a time-dependent PE effect (how PE – overall or by subtypes – affects cardiac function at a given point during pregnancy). Results and conclusion We compare cardiac function measurements and corresponding indexed values from the first 100 women recruited to the PEACH study with late-onset PE and 100 appropriate controls, at given points during pregnancy, adjusting for age, parity, hospital, ethnicity and other potential confounders. The resulting profiles should help to clarify what role cardiac function monitoring can play in prediction, triage, diagnosis and/or management of late-onset PE.