Thrombophilia in women with pregnancy-associated complications: fetal loss and pregnancy-related venous thromboembolism.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Existing data regarding the prevalence of thrombophilia in women with pregnancy complications are conflicting.

METHODS

To investigate the relationship between pregnancy-associated complications and the presence of thrombophilia, we studied the records of 453 women with pregnancy-associated complications. In 55 women, intrauterine fetal death (fetus mortus in utero, FMU) after 20 weeks of gestation was recorded, in 231 two or more consecutive recurrent fetal losses (RFL) were recorded, while 167 had a venous thromboembolism (VTE) during one of their pregnancies. The control group consisted of 128 healthy women, with no previous history of thrombotic events or miscarriages.

RESULTS

In the FMU group we found 54.5% of women had thrombophilia, in the RFL group 38%, and in the VTE group 52.7%. The most frequent thrombophilia in the VTE group was the FV Leiden (OR 17.9, 95% CI 4.2-75.9). The most frequent thrombophilia in the FMU group was the FII G20210A (OR 7.09, 95% CI 1.8-27.9). Statistical difference between RFL and the control group was observed only for FV Leiden (OR 6.8, 95% CI 1.6-29.7).

CONCLUSION

Thrombophilia was found to be considerably more common in women with pregnancy-associated complications in comparison with the women with normal pregnancies, most frequently in patients with VTE or FMU.