Impact of hyponatremia in preeclamptic patients with severe features

PLoS One. 2024 Jul 8;19(7):e0302019. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302019. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Hyponatremia, though common in women with preeclampsia, has not been well studied. Our primary objectives are to assess the clinical characteristics and emergency therapy applied to subjects diagnosed with preeclampsia. We hypothesize that hyponatremia present in preeclamptic patients with severe features is associated with greater use of emergency hypertensives, antenatal steroids, and cesarean delivery. This is a retrospective descriptive study utilizing an electronic health record database (TriNetX ®). We collected and evaluated the following data of subjects aged 15 to 54 years with preeclampsia with severe features diagnosis: demographics, diagnostic codes, medication codes, procedure codes, deaths, and laboratory results. A total of 2,901 subjects [215 (7.4%)] with a sodium level below 134 mEq/L and [2686 (92.6%)] with a sodium level above 135 mEq/L were included. A higher proportion of subjects in the below 134 sodium group received emergency antihypertensives [165 (76.7%) versus 1811 (67.4%), p = 0.01], antenatal steroids [103 (47.9%) versus 953 (35.5%), p = 0.001], and cesarean section [27 (12.6%) versus 97 (3.6%), p = <0.001]. We found that hyponatremia may be associated with emergency antihypertensive use, antenatal steroid use, and cesarean section in patients with preeclampsia with severe features. Future research is needed to determine if routine sodium levels assessed in preeclamptic subjects with severe features identify subjects at risk of receiving these treatments.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Antihypertensive Agents / therapeutic use
  • Cesarean Section
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Hyponatremia* / etiology
  • Middle Aged
  • Pre-Eclampsia* / blood
  • Pregnancy
  • Retrospective Studies
  • Sodium / blood
  • Young Adult

Substances

  • Antihypertensive Agents
  • Sodium

Grants and funding

The project described was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, through Grant UL1 TR002014 including TriNetX network access. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. There was no additional external funding received for this study.