Maternal cardiovascular hemodynamics in normal and preeclamptic pregnancies using echocardiography: A Colombian multicenter study

Background: Preeclampsia is associated with higher prevalence of abnormal global left ventricular function. So present study was designed to compare these changes in normal and preeclamptic pregnancies using echocardiography. Methods: In present study, 96 patients with pre-eclampsia with singleton pregnancy between 20-30 years (study group) were compared with 96 age matched healthy pregnant women (control group). They were non-invasively analysed for cardiovascular hemodynamics using echocardiography. The data was analysedusing student’s t- test. p value <0.05 was considered to be significant. Results: Mean stroke volume in pre-eclampsia group was 72.4±5.1 ml v/s 67.7±5.6 ml in control group and the difference was statistically significant. Mean Cardiac output inpre-eclampsia group was64.2±3.4 lt/min v/s 5.69±0.47 lt/min in control group which is statistically significant.Mean Systemic vascular resistance (dyne.sec cm-5) in pre-eclampsia group was 1468.22±5.7 v/s 957.7±131 in control group which is statistically significant. Mean Ejection fraction (%) in pre-eclampsia group was 68.31±5.1 v/s 66.54±4.7 in control group which is statistically significant. Conclusions: Doppler echocardiography provides an excellent non-invasive method for evaluation of hemodynamic changes during pregnancy. Therefore if it is introducedinto antenatal protocol, could help to identify subset of preeclamptic women who are at high risk to developing complications and thereby can do early intervention.