New pre-eclampsia test will help save lives

A NEW, faster and more accurate test has been developed to detect a condition that kills 700 unborn babies every year.

The simple urine test could flag up pre-eclampsia ten weeks earlier than present methods, US doctors say.

The complication affects one in 12 pregnancies and endangers 50,000 pregnant women, but is not usually diagnosed until they begin antenatal appointments. It can also kill mothers, who are most at risk if they are overweight or aged over 40.

At the moment, high blood pressure or protein in the urine are the first signs of pre-eclampsia, in which the mother’s immune system is thought to treat her baby as a foreign object and reject it. Doctors believe it is caused by the placenta failing to develop properly in the womb.

The only ‘cure’ is to deliver the baby prematurely. But the new, cheaper test picks up an earlier and far more subtle symptom – kidney cells.

Writing in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, the researchers said these show up in at risk mother’s urine at 27 weeks – before protein or high blood pressure are detected. Lead author Dr Vesna Garovic, of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, said: ‘It is a more sensitive test than those which are currently available, and should be available routinely within two years.’

Marcus Green, of Action on PreEclampsia, said: ‘Every six minutes a woman dies somewhere in the world from pre-eclampsia – a cruel and terrible condition.’