Abstract
Diabetic retinopathy worsens during pregnancy. To elucidate the exacerbating factors, platelet immunoreactive prostaglandin E (IRPG E) and plasma immunoreactive prostaglandin F2α (IRPG F2α) were assayed in pregnant diabetics.Eight pregnant diabetics and7nonpregnant diabetics were selected for the study.The control group consisted of8healthy nonpregnant nondiabetics and pregnant nondiabetics.There were3pregnant women whose retinopathy worsened from Scott 0to II during pregnancy.
The platelet IRPG E concentrations in the pregnant diabetics (7.9±4.0pg/105cell, Mean± SD) were significantly higher than those in the nonpregnant nondiabetics (3.9±1.7), pregnant nondiabetics (3.6±1.2) and nonpregnant diabetics (3.5±3.2).The plasma IRPG F2αconcentrations in the nonpregnant diabetics (3.5±0.8ng/ml) were significantly higher than those in the nonpregnant nondiabetics (2.1±0.9) and pregnant nondiabetics (1.6±0.4).The plasma IRPG F2α concentrations in the pregnant diabetics (7.0±4.8) were significantly higher than those in the nonpregnant nondiabetics and pregnant nondiabetics.The plasma IRPG F2αconcentrations in the pregnant diabetics were higher than those in the nonpregnant diabetics, but the difference was not statistically significant.Both the platelet IRPG E and plasma IRPG F2αconcentrations were the highest in the pregnant diabetics with retinopathy which worsened to Scott II stage during pregnancy.
These findings suggest that the platelet IRPG E and plasma IRPG F2αrepresented exacerbating factors of diabetic retinopathy during pregnancy.
