NEW DIAGNOSTIC KIT FOR PRE-ECLAMPSIA

RESEARCHERS at LEEDS university developed a newer user friendly method to diagnose pre-eclampsia early.The team has been able to distinguish between pregnant women who are healthy and those with pre-eclampsia by studying samples of their blood plasma taken at the same time as routine blood samples.
The team used a technique which is based on the same science as MRI scans but which operates on fluids taken from the body, to identify chemicals in the blood plasma of pregnant women. The amount of these chemicals was found to depend on whether the women were healthy or whether they were suffering from pre-eclampsia.
According to the researchers,“The concentration of certain chemicals such as amino acids and fat in the body has been found to vary in a way which is dependent on the health of the woman. We have found that some of these chemicals increase in concentration when the woman is suffering from pre-eclampsia whilst others decrease.”
The findings were published last year in the medical journal Hypertension in Pregnancy and another paper on the subject will be published in the same journal in the spring. The discovery has been patented and is being developed by a spin-out company, MetaBio Ltd.