Blood f ilter could stop pre-eclampsia mums giving birth too early
A BLOOD cleansing treatment could help to stop women with dangerously high blood pressure from giving birth early.
Tests show that filtering a key protein out of a mother-to-be’s blood can delay the birth by more than two weeks.
This is important because premature birth is the world’s biggest killer of newborns and, in Britain, one in 13 babies arrives prematurely.
Those who survive face a host of health problems, with one in ten developing a permanent disability such as lung disease, cerebral palsy, blindness or deafness. Every extra week in the womb can be beneficial.
The new treatment is aimed at helping women with pre-eclampsia, one of Britain’s biggest causes of premature birth.
The devastating condition claims the lives of up to 1,000 babies and six mothers a year, and is characterised by high blood pressure and protein in the urine.
US doctors have shown that if a protein called sFlt01 is removed from the mother-tobe’s blood, it is possible to delay the birth. British doctors said that while the study was preliminary the results were exciting.
Eleven pregnant women underwent a proc- ess called apheresis, in which their blood was passed through a piece of equipment that removed the protein, before the ‘cleansed’ blood was returned to the body.
Some had developed pre-eclampsia as early as 23 weeks into their pregnancy – a point at which any baby born faces a real struggle for survival.
A single blood-cleansing treatment delayed the birth by a few days but a course of sessions gave the baby more than two extra weeks in the womb, the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology reports.
It is not known exactly why the cleansing helps but the sFlt01 protein is involved in blood vessel growth and removing it lowered the woman’s blood pressure.
Lead researcher Ravi Thadhani, of Massachusetts General Hospital, said: ‘Based on recent advances in the understanding of this condition, we and others are developing treatment for pre-eclampsia to allow women to safely prolong their pregnancy. Prolonging the pregnancy allows the baby to mature, markedly reducing complications.’
He said that the pilot trial suggests the treatment can be given safely early in pregnancy but more research is needed.
In an accompanying editorial, Thomas Easterling, a University of Washington obstetrician, stressed that i n very young babies, every extra week in the womb is important.
He added that when the cost of special care baby units is factored in, the treatment is ‘probably cost-effective’.
Professor Andrew Shennan, of the baby charity Tommy’s, said: ‘This is a small, but important and novel study suggesting that this therapy can be used to treat pre-eclampsia, and extend time to delivery. It makes use of our modern understanding of pre-eclampsia showing certain vascular factors are important in causing the disease.
‘By removing one of these factors, the mother and baby may be better off, and the pregnancy extended. Prolonging the pregnancy allows the baby to mature, markedly reducing complications.’
‘The results are exciting’