Serum Sestrin2 and PIGF levels in pregnant women with pre-eclampsia and their correlations with the severity of the disease: A case-control study

Purpose: Sestrin2, a metabolic regulator with antioxidant activity, might have some certain predictability for the occurrence and severity of pre-eclampsia (PE). The purpose of this work was to explore the levels of serum Sestrin2 and PIGF in pregnant women with PE and their correlation with the severity index of the disease. Methods:This was a retrospective case-control study of pregnant women with PE who planned to give birth in our hospital from 05/2017 to 05/2019. Pearson correlation was used to analyze Sestrin2 and PIGF levels with PE severity. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to evaluate the predictive value of Sestrin2 and PIGF for PE. Results: There were 52 women in the control group, 46 in the mild PE group, and 36 in the severe PE group. As the severity of PE increased, the median levels of Sestrin2 increased (8.1, 9.8, and 11.8 ng/ml), and the levels of PIGF decreased (156, 117, and 67 pg/ml) in the three groups of women (all P<0.05).The levels of Sestrin2 and PIGF were strongly correlated with mean arterial pressure, proteinuria, newborn birth weight and gestational weeks at delivery (all P<0.001). Sestrin2 and PIGF had high efficiency of diagnosing PE (cut-off: 8.90 ng/ml, Area Under Curve [AUC]=0.979; cut-off: 122.50 pg/ml, AUC=0.963). Additionally, Sestrin2 and PIGF showed high value of severity prediction (cut-off: 11.15 ng/ml, AUC=0.857; cut-off: 68.50 pg/ml, AUC=0.837). Conclusion: Sestrin2 and PIGF are correlated with the severity of PE. Both Sestrin2 and PIGF had high value for PE diagnosis and severity prediction.