Relationship of red cell distribution width with preeclampsia in Syrian pregnant women

Abstract EN

Objective : Red cell distribution width (RDW) is associated with hypertension.

Preeclampsia is a disorder characterized by the onset hypertension and proteinuria after 20 weeks of gestation.

This study aimed to investigate the association between red cell distribution width (RDW) and preeclampsia.

Methods : A total of 99 pregnant women were enrolled in the study from November 2014 to December 2015 at Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital in Damascus- Syria.

The study had 49 preeclampsia patients and 50 healthy pregnant women as controls.

All participants underwent blood sampling, and an automated complete blood count was performed.

Results : RDW was higher in women with preeclampsia (15.34±2.35, p=0.0001).

This difference was independent of anemia.

RDW was higher in severe preeclampsia compared to mild preeclampsia (p=0.01).

The ROC of RDW demonstrated that the AUC was 0.845 (95% CI: 0.743-0.918; p<0.0001) with an optimal cutoff of 15.2%, that predicts severe preeclampsia with a sensitivity and a specificity of 56.0% and 94.0%, respectively.

RDW was elevated in preeclampsia pregnant women and associated with its severity.

Conclusions : Red cell distribution width could be a potential predictive marker in preeclampsia.