Heart disease drugs could be used to save babies in the womb

Published on Wednesday 20 April 2011 14:41

CHOLESTEROL-lowering drugs used to prevent heart disease in middle-aged men could prevent the baby-killer condition pre-eclampsia, Scottish scientists said yesterday.

In a major trial funded by the Medical Research Council, scientists from Edinburgh University will investigate if the drugs, known as statins, can head off the "very early-onset" version of the condition which affects pregnant women and their unborn children.

Two out of every 25 pregnancies in the UK involve some degree of pre-eclampsia, with the very serious early-onset kind, which occurs in women who are under 32 weeks pregnant, affecting one in a hundred.

The only "cure" for pre-eclampsia is induced premature delivery. The early onset of the illness is deadly for unborn children, who sometimes have to be brought into the world so prematurely that they have no hope of survival.

The trial, the world's first into the effects of statins in pregnancy, follows research that has shown the cheap, commonly available heart medicine can help to lower the presence of two proteins that have been linked to the onset of pre-eclampsia.

Statins act on an enzyme that suppresses the production of the proteins, known as soluble FLt-1 and soluble endoglin.

The study follows on from previous research that shows the enzyme involved - heme oxygenase 1 - produces carbon monoxide within cells. It could also explain why female smokers, with higher levels of carbon monoxide in their blood, have a lower risk of pre-eclampsia.

Pre-eclampsia, responsible for around four million premature births worldwide each year, causes high blood pressure, inflammation of the lining of blood vessels and can also cause kidney and liver damage. In extreme cases, when unmanaged, it can also lead to convulsions and the death of the mother.

Professor Asif Ahmed, of Edinburgh University's Centre for Cardiovascular Science, said it was too early for pregnant women who think they may be susceptible to pre-eclampsia to ask a doctor to prescribe statins.

He said: "This is the first stage, but we are confident that taking a scientific approach to find a way to alleviate pre-eclampsia would enable us to prolong affected pregnancies, improving the outcome for both the baby and the expectant mother.

"If successful, this could help provide cheap, widely available therapy against pre-eclampsia which could help reduce maternal and infant deaths across the world."

The trial will also involve researchers from the University of Birmingham, University College London Hospital and Queen Mary, University of London.

Baby danger

Pre-eclampsia is a medical condition in which hypertension arises in pregnancy in association with significant amounts of protein in the urine.

It is thought there are many causes for the condition, which can develop from 20 weeks' gestation. It can, more rarely, also occur up to six weeks after the woman has given birth.

The condition is diagnosed when a pregnant woman develops high blood pressure and has high levels of protein in her urine.

The most common of dangerous complications in pregnancy, there is no known cure, apart from to deliver the baby - either by inducing labour or carrying out a Caesarean section.

It is thought the condition occurs in as many as 10 per cent of pregnancies.