Prague, Aug 14 (CTK) – A new blood test, paid by Czech health insurers, reveals in time preeclampsia disorder which threatens both the pregnant woman and the embryo and which is the most often cause of death in pregnancy, the non-commercial online portal LabTestsOnline has informed CTK.
The disorder is caused by an incorrectly functioning placenta where the embryo does not have enough oxygen and nutrients.
It is a dangerous disorder that is difficult to uncover in time because its sings are high blood pressure, leg swelling, headache and nausea, which can develop in normal pregnancy, too.
The test provides the result within a few minutes, while until now, women had to wait in hospitals a couple of days.
World-wide, preeclampsia is responsible for 42 percent of deaths of pregnant women and 15 percent of premature births.
The disorder threatens mainly women who suffered from it in their previous pregnancy, who had it in their family, are younger than 19 and older than 40, are obese or have a multiple pregnancy.
“The disease usually occurs in the third trimester, not earlier than in the 20th week of pregnancy,” Jarolsav Racek, head of the Clinical Biochemistry and Haematology of the Teaching Hospital in Plzen, has told CTK.
No other “treatment” of the disorder but abortion is known as yet.
According to the May issue of the journal of Czech gynaecologists atwww.actualgyn.com, the risk of preeclampsia is 2 to 8 percent in the country.
Experts say the distinguishing of preeclampsia from other diseases connected with high blood pressure in pregnancy cuts hospitalisation by up to a half.
This could save an equivalent of 879 million crowns in Britain annually and some 200 million crowns in the Czech Republic.
($1=24.211 crowns)
ms/dr
