A Retrospective Analysis of Possible Association Between Severe Pregnancy Complications and Elevated Factor VIII Plasma Activity.

Congenital and acquired thrombophilia were identified as risk factors for thrombosis in systemic vessels.Thrombophilias have also been recently found to be associated with preeclampsia, intrauterine fetal growth restriction (IUGR), placental abruption, intrauterine fetal death (IUFD) and repeated pregnancy loss.These severe pregnancy complications are thought to result from thrombotic events occurring in the uteroplacental circulation. Accumulating data have established an association between elevated plasma activity of factor VIII and thrombosis although the mechanism is still not defined and elevated factor VIII activity is now regarded as being equivalent to thrombophilia.

We intend to investigatthe association between factor VIII levels and severe pregnancy complications which are considered to result from placental vascular pathology, i.e., preeclampsia, IUGR, placental abruption and IUFD. We hypothezise that the prevalence of elevated factor 8 will be higher among women with pregnancy complications compared to controls.