Introduction: Placental perfusion is of key interest for the understanding of the pathophysiology of different types of preeclampsia (PE). With magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) perfusion can be estimated non-invasively by calculation of the tissue perfusion fraction from a diffusion weighted sequence (DWI).
Objectives: Our primary aim was to investigate if women with early or late PE have different placental perfusion compared with normal pregnancies. A secondary aim was to investigate if placental perfusion changes with increased gestational length in normal pregnancy.
Methods: 5 women with early PE (<34weeks), 8 women with late PE (⩾34weeks), and 19 women with normal pregnancies were included. All women underwent an MRI examination including a DWI sequence at 1.5T. The perfusion fraction was calculated.
Results: Women with early PE had a lower placental perfusion fraction (p=0.002) and women with late PE had a higher placental perfusion fraction (p=0.012) than gestational age matched women with normal pregnancies. The placental perfusion fraction decreased with increased gestational length in normal pregnancies (p=0.001).
Conclusion: Our finding of reduced placental perfusion in early, but not late PE is in agreement with the hypothesis that early and late PE have partly different pathophysiology, where early PE is a mainly placental disease. The placental perfusion, as estimated by the perfusion fraction, decreased with increased gestational length in normal pregnancies.
Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier B.V.