Correlative study of serum hepcidin levels and serum iron reserve parameters in preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome

Abstract

HELLP syndrome is described as a special group of severe preeclampsia characterized by haemolysis (H), elevated liver enzymes (EL) and low platelets (PL), whereas preeclampsia is a disease of unknown etiology characterized by hypertension and proteinuria after the 20^th week of gestation. The objective of the study was to evaluate the level of hepcidin in the serum of the patient suffering from HELLP syndrome and preeclampsia. It was done by competitive sandwich ELISA which assesses the serum level of hepcidin in the forty patients suffering from preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome (as cases) and forty healthy individuals (as control). The results of our study showed that serum hepcidin levels were significantly increased among the cases (<em>P </em>=0.00171) in comparison to control (<em>P </em><0.05) and transferrin saturation levels were significantly decreased (<em>P </em><0.05) among the cases (<em>P </em>=0.001) in comparison to controls. The decrease in transferrin saturation indicates that there is low serum iron level among the cases. It was concluded that increased hepcidin level may be the cause of anemia among the cases.