Maternal Progesterone Level in Fetal Growth Restriction and Its Relationship with Doppler Velocimetry Indices

Background/objective: to verify whether progesterone concentration is changed in thematernal serum of intra-uterine growth retardation (iugr) pregnancies and to assess if there is arelationship between maternal progesterone and fetal doppler velocimetry.patients and methods: thirty-five patients with intrauterine growth retardation infants andthirty-seven pregnant women with appropriate for gestational age (aga) fetuses were enrolled inthe study. maternal progesterone serum was determined. doppler velocimetry of umbilical andmiddle cerebral arteries (mca) were obtained in all fetuses.results: maternal progesterone level in iugr infants (58.49±7.06 ng/ml) had no significantdifference with aga fetuses (58.13±7.87 ng/ml) (p=0.96). in the iugr group, umbilical arteryresistive index (ri), pulsatility index (pi) and systolic/diastolic (s/d) ratio were higher than thenormal group (p<0.001), and mca ri (p value=0.014) and pi (p=0.012) were significantly less thanthe iugr group. besides, ri c/u in the iugr group was significantly less than the normal group(p<0.001). a negative significant correlation was detected between maternal progesterone leveland mca pi (r=-0.38) and ri (r=-0.38) in the aga group.conclusion: it seems that progesterone has no effect on fetal placental circulation and serumprogesterone can not discriminate iugr infants from aga infants. progesterone is a poor markerfor placental dysfunction.