A novel blood test that can predict whether women having early contractions will go on to give birth too soon has been developed.
The blood-based diagnostic test accurately predicted whether 70 per cent of female study participants with threatened preterm labour (TPTL) would or would not give birth prematurely.
"A lot of TPTL women are unnecessarily hospitalised," said Professor Stephen Lye from the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada.
"We want to develop a test that can differentiate between true and false labour so that women in true labour can receive the appropriate medical care while women in false labour will receive supportive care and be discharged," Lye said.
Preterm birth worldwide remains the main cause of childbirth-related mortality in the developed world.
Only 5 per cent of the women hospitalised with signs of premature labour (ie TPTL) will deliver a premature baby within ten days, researchers said.
The current preterm labour diagnostic test, foetal fibronectin (fFN) test is easily influenced by factors that can cause false positives.
Thus, many women are ineligible for fFN testing.
In an effort to develop a method that can be used in all cases, scientists used micro-arrays to study differential whole blood gene expression associated with spontaneous premature birth within 48 hours in women admitted with TPTL - an important window for the clinical management of TPTL.
Blood samples were collected prior to treatment from 150 TPTL women.
The fFN test was also performed on eligible participants (60 women), and the results were compared.
The researchers discovered that a set of nine genes, coupled with clinical blood data, could classify whether 70 per cent of participants would or would not have a spontaneous preterm birth within 48 hours of hospital admission.
In addition, the nine genes coupled with clinical blood data outperformed the fFN test.
This newer test highlights the advantages of utilising a blood-based diagnostic test to predict spontaneous preterm birth, where it can be performed on all women and as part of routine blood work.
The finding was published in the journal PLOS ONE.
