Orabona, et al. – This study is performed to examine the presence of myocardial and/or aortic fibrosis in asymptomatic women with a history of early–onset (EO) or late–onset (LO) pre–eclampsia (PE) by echocardiographic calibrated integrated backscatter (cIBS). Women with a history of EOPE demonstrated LV fibrosis at short–medium term after delivery if compared to LOPE or controls. Left ventricular (LV) fibrosis is related to gestational age (GA) and mean uterine artery (UtA) pulsatility index (PI) at PE onset. Larger studies utilizing cardiac magnetic resonance are needed to compare these outcomes with.

Methods

• 30 women who experienced pregnancies complicated by EOPE, 30 with a previous LOPE and 30 controls were retrospectively chosen from their electronic database and then recalled from 6 months to 4 years after delivery.
• Information with respect to gestational age (GA) and mean uterine artery (UtA) pulsatility index (PI) at diagnosis of PE were gathered from medical records.
• At cardiovascular evaluation the presence of fibrosis was examined by means of cIBS at basal interventricular septum (cIBS_IVS), basal posterior wall (cIBS_PW) and anterior wall of ascending aorta 3 cm above the valve (cIBS_AO).

Results

• Using IBS imaging they observed significant left ventricular fibrosis in women with a history of EOPE with respect to LOPE and controls (p<0.001 for cIBS_IVSand p 0.005 for cIBS_PW), whereas aortic fibrosis did not significantly differ among cases and controls.
• Stepwise multivariate regression examination demonstrated that LV fibrosis was independently connected with lower GA and higher mean UtA PI at diagnosis of PE while cIBS_AO correlated with aortic diameters and stiffness.