The Food and Drug Administration has approved a blood test that can
identify pregnant women at severe risk for preeclampsia high blood
pressure disorder that can develop during pregnancy. Stephanie's
I reports the condition is a leading cause of maternal death worldwide,
Roughly one in 25 pregnancies in the U. S is affected by preeclampsia,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If undetected
and untreated, Severe pre eclampsia can cause maternal death in recent
years. The condition accounted for about 6% of total maternal deaths
in the US Dr. Ravi Thadani is executive vice president for health
affairs at Emory University and co author of a study that Looked
at this blood test. Dr Thadani. Thank you so much for joining the
news hour. I understand there are already The variety of tests to
check if a pregnant woman may have preeclampsia. So what is different
or better about this blood test? Stephanie thank you for the question
pretty clumsy as a hard condition to diagnose, but it's an even more
difficult condition to predict. This is the first test approved by
the FDA to predict this terrible condition.
Importantly, it adds to a toolkit of other tests and measures that
clinicians use. We use blood pressure and a variety of blood tests,
but this particular test adds precision. To the diagnosis and prediction
of preeclampsia. There are two important features of this test. One
is it actually yields information before a woman actually get sick,
So as a prediction, it does really well and secondly, it acts like
a time clock like a countdown and tells you when she's going to get
sick. It is a terrible condition. In fact, many of us will have heard
of Tori Bowie, the track star who died just a month ago in childbirth.
She is believed to have had a clamp C at the time of her death, which
really put a spotlight on this. Condition. She was obviously very
fit, as is former track star Allyson Felix, who also had preeclampsia
during her pregnancy. What does this tell us about who is at risk
for this condition? Clams here happens in about 5 to 7% of all women
who get pregnant in the United States. That's about 200,000 women.
Most pre eclampsia happens at term. Where it's mild. It's really
the preterm pre clams here that we focus on because a woman If she
delivers preterm. The risk for the baby, of course, are incredibly
high. The only treatment we have for this condition is the delivery.
We know and understand some risk factors for this condition. Stephanie
High blood pressure, obesity, diabetes in vitro fertilization and
so forth, But we truly don't know the cause of this condition. We
have a better understanding of the biology as to who gets the condition.
The women that you mentioned incredibly unfortunate. We know that
the condition affects Black women at a rate of 3 to 5 times higher.
Than women who are non black and well, We don't understand why that's
the case. We have a better understanding. Like I said of the of the
disease overall. And this test, of course, helps us with that. Yeah,
I was gonna ask who this test was for, and whether you see this test
is becoming something in routine pregnancy screening and whether
all women will have access to this blood test. So what we did in
this study, Stephanie as we studied women who came into the hospital
with high blood pressure, so clearly they had some risk factor already,
and we used the test to predict or at least the test was able to
predict who went on to get severe. Uh, severe disease. The risk factors
as I mentioned high blood pressure, diabetes in vitro fertilization,
twin pregnancies. One can imagine the test first focused on those
women with those risk factors, But unfortunately there are women
without any risk factors. In fact, that represents the majority of
women that get this condition and again. We still don't understand.
Uh why or when they get condition as far as screening or routine
use of this test right now, it's only I believe going to be used
in women at high risk for the condition. And I understand that this
test is already in use in Europe. How widely might we see it be in
use here in the US where we have an extremely high maternal mortality
rate among the highest among developing nations.
Yeah, that's right. Unfortunately, we have some of the highest maternal
mortality rates. I currently work in Georgia, and it ranks among
the top states but also in other parts of this country. Really unfortunate.
The test is actually available in a few sites now and certainly,
as we roll into the summer and into the fall of the tests will become
much more widely available. We've used this test in Europe, not by
way of a full approval, but a conditional approval in Europe and
people use it and find it incredibly useful. This, of course, represents
the largest study that we completed in the United States, demonstrating
that the test has utility in the diversity of women that get pregnant
and give birth here. Well, it is certainly a toolkit that needs more
tools to address maternal mortality. Dr Ravi Thadani with Emory University.
Thanks so much for joining us with your expertise. Thank you, Stephanie.