MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Jane E. Salmon, MD
Division of Rheumatology
Hospital for Special Surgery, and
Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY
Medical Research: Background on lupus and antiphospholipid antibodies - what are they?
Dr. Salmon: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a multi-system autoimmune disease that predominantly affects women and presents during their childbearing years. In SLE, the immune system which normally protects one from infection, turns reacts against the self and can cause damage of multiple organs.
Antiphospholipid antibodies (APL) occur in some people with SLE and some without SLE. They are autoantibodies that can damage the placenta and cause arterial and venous thromboses. Patients with APL can have fetal deaths, miscarriages, preeclampsia and/or growth restricted babies.
Pregnancy in patients with SLE, particularly those with antiphospholipid antibodies (APL), and in patients with APL alone, is associated with an increased risk for maternal and fetal morbidity due to preeclampsia (PE) and insufficient placental support of the developing fetus. PE and placental insufficiency are, in turn, associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes (APOs), including maternal complications of PE, intrauterine fetal death, and fetal growth restriction, as well as indicated preterm delivery. Given that APOs affect over one fifth of pregnancies in SLE and/or APL, the ability to identify patients early in pregnancy who are destined for poor outcomes would significantly impact care of this high risk population.
Medical Research: Two bullets about your PROMISSE study:
Dr. Salmon: The
PROMISSE Study (
Predictors of p
Regnancy
Outcome: bio
Marker
In antiphospholipid antibody
Syndrome and
Systemic lupus
Erythematosus). PROMISSE is the largest multi-center, multi-ethnic and multi-racial study to prospectively assess the frequency of APO, clinical, laboratory and biomarker variables that predict APO, in women with SLE and/or APL with inactive or mild/ moderate activity at conception.
Pregnant patients with SLE and/or APL were enrolled at <12 weeks gestation into PROMISSE between September 2003 and August 2013 at 7 sites (n=497) along with matched healthy controls (n=207) and followed every month of pregnancy.
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