Preeclampsia: Where do we stand for an Early Diagnosis?

Abstract

Preeclampsia represents a danger to nearly 10 million pregnant women worldwide. This gestational pathology has very important consequences for preeclamptic (PE) women but also for newborns. To date, no early diagnostic tools are available for PE, resulting from the difficulties to identify the originating cause of this disease. However, researchers and clinicians are actively working on the identification of a biomarker acceptable to all. This is a challenging work as this biomarker must be able to identify pregnant women at risk of developing PE as early as possible during their pregnancy, in a non-invasive way and at low costs. The identification of early PE biomarkers will allow a better management of pregnant women at risk for PE or suspected for PE, and reduce maternal and child morbidity and mortality associated with this disease. Several molecules and genes have been identified as potential candidates over the years. However, not one of these has been unanimously accepted. This review will present the current state of research regarding the potentially best PE markers or combination of markers identified as of now.