Association of elevated soluble P-selectin levels with fetal loss in women with a history of venous thromboembolism

Introduction: An association between pregnancy complications such as fetal loss with inherited and acquired thrombophilic defects has frequently been reported. Recently, the cell adhesion molecule P-selectin has been identified to be a strong risk factor for venous thromboembolism (VTE).

Patients and methods: The aim of our study was to investigate whether soluble P-selectin (sP-selectin) is also associated with fetal loss (e.g. miscarriage or stillbirth) in 304 women (median age [25th-75th percentile]: 45 [37-54] years) with a history of VTE, in whom data on pregnancy-associated complications had been evaluated. At the time of sP-selectin measurement none of the women was pregnant or had an acute VTE.

Results: The prevalence of miscarriage was 21.4% and that of stillbirth was 4.6%. The median sP-selectin level of the total study population was 38.0 [31.7-44.4] ng/mL. In subjects with elevated sP-selectin levels (defined as sP-selectin ≥44.4ng/mL, representing the 75th percentile of levels in the study population) the prevalence of stillbirth was significantly higher compared to those with lower levels (10.5% vs. 2.6%, p=0.008), whereas no statistically significant difference in the prevalence of miscarriage was observed between women with and without elevated sP-selectin (17.1% vs. 22.9%, p=0.303). The odds ratio [95% CI] of elevated sP-selectin was 4.2 [1.5-12.7] for stillbirth and 0.7 [0.4-1.3] for miscarriage.

Conclusions: Elevated sP-selectin plasma levels were associated with a 4.2-fold risk for stillbirth in women with a history of VTE. Our data support a possible role of P-selectin in late pregnancy loss.