PlGF cutoff <100 pg/mL demonstrated 100 percent sensitivity and specificity at 20 to 24 weeks of gestation for early-onset preeclampsia
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter
Monday, Oct. 27, 2025 (HealthDay News) — For pregnant individuals with sickle cell disease (SCD), low placental growth factor (PlGF) predicts early-onset preeclampsia, according to a study published online Oct. 21 in Blood Advances.
Noting that low PIGF has emerged as a diagnostic test for preterm preeclampsia, Evangelia Vlachodimitropoulou, Ph.D., from Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, and colleagues examined the distribution of PlGF at midtrimester in 83 pregnant individuals with SCD compared to 149 unaffected Black controls, and explored the diagnostic accuracy of PlGF in the context of suspected preeclampsia in SCD. The retrospective cohort included pregnant people with SCD from January 2017 to September 2021 with at least one PIGF measurement at 20 + 0 to 35 + 6 weeks of gestation and pregnant Black controls without SCD who had suspected preeclampsia or growth restriction.
The researchers found that a PlGF cutoff <100 pg/mL demonstrated 100 percent sensitivity and specificity at 20 to 24 weeks of gestation for early-onset but not late-onset preeclampsia.
“Patients with sickle cell disease are at high risk for developing preeclampsia, but the challenge is that these patients produce placental growth factor even when they aren’t pregnant,” coauthor A. Kinga Malinowski, M.D., from McMaster University Medical Centre in Canada, said in a statement. “This has raised the question of whether we can use low placental growth factor levels to predict preeclampsia in this patient population, and our study finds that, yes, we can, and with the same threshold that we use for patients without sickle cell disease.”
Several authors disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
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