First trimester maternal serum placental growth factor in trisomy 21 pregnancies.

OBJECTIVE

To examine placental growth factor (PlGF) levels in first trimester maternal serum in trisomy 21 pregnancies and to investigate the potential value of PlGF in a first trimester screening test.

METHODS

First trimester maternal serum from 70 trisomy 21 cases and 375 euploid controls were retrospectively analyzed for PlGF using a DELFIA Xpress immunoassay platform. Results were expressed as multiples of medians (MoM) for comparison.

RESULTS

PlGF levels were significantly decreased in pregnancies with trisomy 21, 0.76 MoM versus 0.98 MoM in controls. Inclusion of PlGF into the first trimester combined test [maternal age, pregnancy associated plasma protein-A (PAPP-A), free-beta human chorionic gonadotrophin (beta-hCG) and nuchal translucency] would increase the detection rate by 0.5% at a 5% false positive rate.

CONCLUSION

PlGF at 11 weeks to 13 weeks 6 days has the potential to be included as a marker for the detection of pregnancies with trisomy 21.