The Norwegian preeclampsia family cohort study: a new resource for investigating genetic aspects and heritability of preeclampsia and related phenotypes

Abstract

Background:Preeclampsia is a major pregnancy complication without curative treatment available. A NorwegianPreeclampsia Family Cohort was established to provide a new resource for genetic and molecular studies aiming toimprove the understanding of the complex pathophysiology of preeclampsia.Methods:Participants were recruited from five Norwegian hospitals after diagnoses of preeclampsia registeredin the Medical birth registry of Norway were verified according to the study’s inclusion criteria. Detailed obstetricinformation and information on personal and family disease history focusing on cardiovascular health was collected.At attendance anthropometric measurements were registered and blood samples were drawn. The software packageSPSS 19.0 for Windows was used to compute descriptive statistics such as mean and SD. P-values were computedbased ont-test statistics for normally distributed variables. Nonparametrical methods (chi square) were used forcategorical variables.Results:A cohort consisting of 496 participants (355 females and 141 males) representing 137 families with increasedoccurrence of preeclampsia has been established, and blood samples are available for 477 participants. Descriptiveanalyses showed that about 60 % of the index women’s pregnancies with birth data registered were preeclampticaccording to modern diagnosis criteria. We also found that about 41 % of the index women experienced more thanone preeclamptic pregnancy. In addition, the descriptive analyses confirmed that preeclamptic pregnancies are moreoften accompanied with delivery complications.Conclusion:The data and biological samples collected in this Norwegian Preeclampsia Family Cohort will provide animportant basis for future research. Identification of preeclampsia susceptibility genes and new biomarkers may contributeto more efficient strategies to identify mothers“at risk”and contribute to development of novel preventative therapies