role of maternal serum inhibin a and insulin – like growth factor 1 levels as predictors of fetal outcome in high risk pregnancies.

Background: timely prediction of adverse pregnancy and perinatal outcome has been the endeavor of clinicians since a long time. identification and validation of a serum based biomarker is the need of the hour and many tentative molecules have been studied with variable results. two such molecules are inhibins and insulin like growth factors. this study was planned to assess the utility of inhibin a and igf-1 as predictors of adverse pregnancy and fetal outcomes. methods: the study population comprised of all pregnant women presenting to the ante natal clinic in ssk hospital between gestation periods of 24-28 weeks fulfilling the inclusion criteria. the criteria adopted for inclusion in the study included primi-gravida with singleton pregnancy or multi-gravida with high risk factors in the previous pregnancy such as gestational hypertension, preeclampsia, eclampsia, placental abruption, intrauterine growth retardation, intrauterine fetal demise, preterm delivery and early pregnancy loss. results: the mean levels of inhibin a were significantly higher in women with overall adverse pregnancy outcome such as preeclampsia, gestational hypertension, and preterm delivery as compared to the normal counterparts. no significant difference in the level of igf-1 was observed with various adverse outcomes. inhibin a at the cutoff of ≥ 443pg/ml was found to be reliable marker of preeclampsia and preterm delivery. conclusion: we may hypothesize from our findings that second trimester inhibin a levels may be further evaluated through large prospective studies as an reliable biomarker of adverse pregnancy outcome.