Venous Thromboembolism and Intrauterine Fetal Death in Pregnancy - Epidemiology and Pathogenic Mechanisms

Background: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) in pregnancy is a serious, but rare condition. There is no epidemiological data on this patient group from Norway, and there is generally little literature on the immediate and long-term outcome after such pregnancies. Approximately 50% of the women with VTE in pregnancy have known thrombophilia. These women also carry a considerably increased risk for intrauterine fetal death (IUFD). In this project we want to identify new thrombophilias as risk factors for VTE and IUFD in pregnancy.

Aims:

Using a case-control design we will investigate the following issues:

• Risk factors for VTE in pregnancy and IUFD
• Association between thrombophilia, VTE, and other vascular pregnancy complications including IUFD
• Association between thrombophilia and IUFD
• Long term effects of VTE in pregnancy and IUFD on future health including quality of life
• Association between "single nucleotide polymorphisms" (SNP) in genes coding for specific coagulation-, fibrinolysis-, inflammatory, and other relevant proteins and their phenotypic expression
• Association between relevant phenotypes of coagulation, fibrinolysis, inflammation, and other relevant pathways and their risk of disease
• Association between the frequency of specific SNPs that codes for coagulation-, fibrinolysis-, inflammatory, and other relevant proteins and risk for VTE

Materials and Methods: