The condition, which results in over 70,000 deaths of mothers and 500,000 fetal cases every year all over the world, has long been difficult to predict. This makes proactive treatment challenging, according to one of the study’s main author.

“The food cake is not something we know biopsy during pregnancy, but we believe it is an integral part of developing preeclampsi,” Dr. Swati Shree, a UW medicine OB guy and co-worker writer to the newspaper. “Doctors look at clinical risk factors, which can work reasonably, but it still lacks a lot of people.”

Preeclampsia is a pregnancy complication characterized by high blood pressure (hypertension) or organ function. It usually occurs in the third trimester. The precise cause of the condition is unknown, but doctors suspect that it is related to an abnormal interaction between the placenta and mum’s blood vessels.

Traditionally, doctors tried to discern a pregnant woman’s risk based on her patient history. Risk factors for preeclampsia include first pregnancy, history of preeclampsia, history of hypertension or chronic kidney disease or both. However, sometimes preeclampsia develops in the absence of any of these existing conditions.

Researchers have known for at least two decades that the placenta throws DNA into mother blood. Labs has been able to extract cell -free DNA, sequence it and used the test to screen for fetal deviations such as Down syndrome.

Previously, this testing was sent to external laboratories for treatment, but in 2017 UW Medicine began to do these tests in the house, one of the first healthcare systems to do so, Shree added.

UW Medicine and Fredh Hutch Cancer Center team collaborated to develop the idea of ​​using cell-free DNA sequence data to screen for preeclampsi, SHREE said.

Over the past two years, the investigators, led by shree and cooperative writers Gavin HA, used a calculation biologist at Fred Hutch, this data, which acts as a liquid biopsy, from the first trimester of pregnancy for over 1,000 pregnant individuals to develop and validate then Test.

“The innovation in this tool reinforces how important it is. Liquid biopsy test was groundbreaking in pregnancy health research and is now a growing research area in oncology,” said HA. “There are similarities in the genes we look at in both research areas, which makes this study a collaboration that bridges both areas.”

The samples were collected between 2017-2023. The researchers found that their approach, which uses signals stored in circulating cell-free DNA sequence data, had 80% sensitivity to predict whether or not a pregnant individual would experience premature preeclampsia.

Shree said the next step would be to improve the training model with more samples and ultimately conduct a study that includes thousands of patients. The researchers hope that a test like this can be an early preeclampsia pre -preparation tool that seamlessly is integrated into routine screening of early pregnancy.

“Although the use of fluid biopsies for human diseases is largely used in the cancer area, given the frequency at which cell-free DNA screening is performed, prenatal biology has really incredible opportunities for the discovery and application of innovative tools,” she said.

Financing came from the National Institute of Health (K22 CA237746, DP2 186 CA280624, K08 HL150169, R21 HD086620 and UL1 TR002319).