Abstract:
Preeclampsia is a multisystem disease of pregnancy of unknown cause. It is a maternal
syndrome, which is characterized by increased blood pressure, edema, proteinuria or significant
amount of protein in the urine of pregnant women and abnormal clotting, liver and renal
functions all of which may be due to the release of placental toxic factors into the mother’s
circulation. The only effective therapy to this complication is to facilitate the culteinment of the
pregnancy or delivery (induction of labour, cesarean section). Biochemical markers such as
human chorionic gonadotropin(hCG) and magnesium(Mg2+) are used in predicting preeclampsia.
No work has been done using both markers together and there is no maternal screening program
for preeclampsia available for pregnant women in Ghana. The aim of this study was to determine
the levels of maternal serum hCG and Mg2+ among cases and controls of pregnant Ghanaian
women, with the view of assessing the differential if any in these markers, for high risk
preeclamptic pregnancies. In this prospective study, 200 women aged between 16 and 40 years
with singleton pregnancy were enrolled. Venous blood sample was collected at recruitment
(second trimester) for Mg2+ and hCG assays. Levels of hCG were detected by ELISA methods,
using commercial test kits and that of the Mg2+ were detected by the use of Selectral Junior
analyzer also using commercial test kits. The study population was made up of 150 pregnant
women in second trimester with features of preeclampsia and 50 controls (second trimester
pregnant women with no features of preeclampsia). Out of the total women with features of
preeclampsia, 13 pregnant women were diagnosed as preeclamptic patients with urine protein
assigned+3.The mean age of the WFP was (29.65 ± 5.24) and that of the controls was (27.76 +
5.22). The serum markers, Mg2+ was significantly lowered (0.68 ± 0.11) whiles hCG
significantly raised (0.99 ± 0.20) in the WFP. The study showed that hCG and Mg2+ when used together provide a very good prediction of preeclampsia. Though Mg2+ is a better
predictor of preeclampsia when used separately as compared to hCG.
