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Association of Umbilical Placental Vascular Disease With Fetal Acute Inflammatory Cytokine Responses

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Abstract

Objective

We examined the hypothesis tha fetal proinflammatory cytokine release is a feature of placental vascular disease causing fetal compromise. We measured the concentrations of fetal proinflammaory cytokines interleukin 6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), and interleukin-8 (IL-8) in the presence of vascular disease in the umbilical placental villous circulation. Vascular disease was identified by high-resistance umbilical artery Doppler flow velocity waveform studies.

Methods

We measured levels of the inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α and the chemokine IL-8 in fetal blood. Blood was collected from the umbilical vein at delivery, and serumwas stored at −70C until assayed using chemiluminescent and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay methods. We studied 36 normal pregnancies delivered by elective cesarean at term and 50 pregnancies with a high-resistance umbilical artery Doppler flow velocity waveform pattern indicative of feal placental vascular disease delivered by elective cesarean because of potential fetal compromise.

Results

In the presence of umbilical placental vascular disease there were significantly higher levels of IL-6 (median 5.3 pg/mL, P < .05) and IL-8 (median 26.5 pg/mL, P < .01) compared with normal pregnanices (median value of IL-6 and IL-8 were below assay threshold). There was no difference for TNF-α, with the median results undetectable in both groups.

Conclusion

We found higher concentrations of IL-6 and IL-8 in the fetal circulation in the presence of umbilical placental vascular disease.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Sydney at Westmead Hospital, P.O. Box 533, 2145, Wentworthville, NSW, Australia

    Brian Trudinger MD, Jun Wang PhD, Neil Athayde MBBS, Lucinda Beutler BSc & Xin Wang MM

Authors
  1. Brian Trudinger MD
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  2. Jun Wang PhD
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  3. Neil Athayde MBBS
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  4. Lucinda Beutler BSc
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  5. Xin Wang MM
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Correspondence to Brian Trudinger MD.

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Trudinger, B., Wang, J., Athayde, N. et al. Association of Umbilical Placental Vascular Disease With Fetal Acute Inflammatory Cytokine Responses. Reprod. Sci. 9, 152–157 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1177/107155760200900306

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