Abstract: Background: Preeclampsia is a pregnancy specific disorder characterized by hypertension and proteinuria or new onset of hypertension and significant end organ disfunction with or without proteinuria after 20 weeks of gestation. Preeclampsia is associated with reduction of utero-placental blood flow, which is reflected in high blood pressure and proteinuria during the second half of pregnancy. Hyper-androgenism may be implicated in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia, if so, there should be a difference between the levels of testosterone in pregnant women complicated with preeclampsia and those without this complication.
Objective: To determine association of serum free testosterone with preeclampsia.
Methods: This case control study was conducted in the department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology of Institute of Child & Mother Health (ICMH), Matuail, Dhaka during September 2021 to August 2022. Patient complicated by preeclampsia and patient without preeclampsia attending Obstetrics and Gynecology Department was included in this study by consecutive sampling. All of them were briefed regarding the study. After that they were included by eligibility criteria and patients were classified into two groups. A total of 80 participants during second half of pregnancy were enrolled and among them 40 patient complicated by preeclampsia was considered as case and 40 patients without preeclampsia was considered as control. A written consent was obtained. Data were analysed by using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS-26). The significance test was done by unpaired t test and Chi square test. P value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results: The mean age of the cases was 23.6±3.66 years and the mean age of the control was 24.25±4.91 years. In both group maximum study subjects were secondary education 40% and 45% in case and control group respectively. Maximum patients 52.5% and 42.5% were 31-35 gestational weeks in case and control group respectively. The mean gestational age 32.1±2.92 weeks in preeclamptic group and 32.4±3.53 weeks in control group. Data analysis revealed no statistically significant difference between two groups patients in terms of sociodemographic parameters (p>0.05). The mean free serum testosterone was 2.91±0.62 in preeclampsia group and 1.19±0.49 in healthy normal pregnancy group. Analysis revealed that mean free serum testosterone was significantly increased among the preeclampsia group than the healthy normal pregnancy group (p<0.001). It was confirmed that the serum free testosterone levels were considerably high in the preeclamptic participants than the participants without preeclampsia.
Conclusion: The levels of free testosterone is higher in patients with preeclampsia compared to normotensive pregnant women during the second half of pregnancy. This difference could indicate an involvement of testosterone in the pathophysiology of preeclampsia and stimulates research in the potential role of anti-androgens in the management of preeclampsia.
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