The predictive value of plasma fibronectin concentration on fetal growth retardation at earlier stage of the third trimester.

In order to evaluate the predictive value of maternal plasma fibronectin (FN) concentration at 24-34 weeks on fetal intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR), a prospective double-blinded study was performed. The maternal plasma FN concentrations were measured by using a rate nephelometric procedure in the 130 initial normal nulliparous pregnant woman at 24-34 gestational weeks. The outcome of pregnancies and birth weight of their infants were followed up. IUGR was defined as that the birth weight was less than the 10th percentile for gestational age. The receiver operating characteristic curves and predictive values of FN predicting on outcome of pregnancy with IUGR were analyzed. The results showed that: (1) In a cohort of 130 initially normal nulliparous pregnant women, IUGR occurred in 14 cases during the follow-up; (2) The plasma FN levels in the women with IUGR (467.58 +/- 104.43 mg/L) were significantly higher than in the normal control group (299.44 +/- 105.55 mg/L, P < 0.01). However, there was no significant difference in the mean maternal age, gravidity, sampling gestational ages, delivering gestational ages between the two groups (P > 0.05); (3) The areas under ROC curve for predicting the outcome of pregnancy in IUGR was 0.893; (4) At the cut point of 475 mg/L FN level, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and Kappa index for predicting the outcomes of pregnancy in IUGR were 57.14%, 95.69%, 61.54%, 94.87%, 0.5455 respectively. It was concluded that the maternal plasma FN might be used as an earlier predictor for screening of IUGR.