New blood test may help detect preeclampsia in first trimester

Preeclampsia can be a life-threatening complication of pregnancy, but a new blood test may help predict a woman's risk of developing the condition in the first trimester, the company that makes the test says.

This is the first test in the United States that can be used at 11 to 14 weeks of pregnancy to determine the risk of preeclampsia up to 34 weeks, says Labcorp press releaseannouncing the launch of the test.

"By providing healthcare providers with another tool to assess the risk of preeclampsia in their pregnant patients using objective biomarkers, we are advancing prenatal care and improving outcomes for mothers and their babies," said Labcorp Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, Dr. Brian Caveney, in a press release.

About one in 25 pregnancies in the United States is complicated by preeclampsia, which poses an even greater risk for black women, who are 60% more likely to have the condition than white women, the company noted.

However, some doctors wonder how much it will help.

"It is currently unclear how useful the Labcorp test will be in accurately predicting the risk of developing preeclampsia and whether it is appropriate for all pregnant patients," Dr. Christopher Tsang, interim CEO of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), told CNN..

"Before a screening test can be used successfully, there must be an evidence-based intervention to either prevent or reduce the impact of the disease. Currently, we do not have data on how to reduce the risk for a pregnant patient who is found to have blood tests in early pregnancy predict preeclampsia, compared with clinical factors,” Tsang added.

Another doctor echoed these concerns.

"The usefulness of the test in patient management has not yet been proven, and it is not clear that it helps more than it can harm. It is not clear that the use of this test is better than current standards of prenatal care," Dr. Christian Pettker, head of the department of obstetrics, told CNN Yale-New Haven Hospital.

"It is unclear to me that this is appropriate for all patients who are pregnant in the first trimester. Perhaps the most applicable group may be patients who have had preeclampsia in a previous pregnancy, although these patients are already at high risk and are often seen differently in their pregnancy," Pettker added.

Preeclampsia: symptoms and treatment methods

Preeclampsia is characterized by high blood pressure, high levels of protein in the urine, or other signs of organ damage. The condition usually occurs after 20 weeks of pregnancy, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

There is no cure for preeclampsia other than childbirth, although severe cases can be controlled with medications, including blood pressure medications.

The new test measures the risk of preeclampsia with a sensitivity of up to 90% and a specificity of 90%, according to Labcorp. Sensitivity is the ability to detect high-risk pregnancies, while specificity refers to the opposite.

Labcorp is in talks with health insurers about possibly covering the test, Kaveney said, adding that it costs about $240. The test works by measuring four biomarkers associated with the risk of preeclampsia.

Potential impact on patients

Eleni Tsigas, CEO of the Preeclampsia Foundation, told CNN that such a test could have made a "significant" difference to her experience with her first pregnancy if it had existed in 1998.

Tsigas was diagnosed with preeclampsia 11 weeks before her due date, and her daughter was stillborn due to complications from the condition.

"My daughter died and it was all a last minute emergency," she said.

But the new first-trimester screening test, "if done correctly, has the potential to eliminate these sudden cases" of preeclampsia, Tsigas added.

"This test comes with insurance coverage issues, and there is a need to make sure that all women, regardless of their socioeconomic status, know that this information should be available to everyone," she said. "If this is true, it has the potential to reduce [racial] disparities in maternal and newborn health outcomes. Tests like these could make a real difference."