Placental Growth Factor (PlGF) is used for the prediction of preeclampsia (PE), a syndrome associated with maternal vascular malperfusion (MVM). Our goal is to determine the correlation between PlGF and MVM.

We performed a secondary analysis of the PEARL study that included nulliparous women with PE (cases), and low-risk nulliparous women recruited in early pregnancy (controls). All participants provided blood samples at diagnosis of PE (cases), or between 26 and 34 weeks (controls) for measurement of PlGF (B·R·A·H·M·S plus KRYPTOR automated assays), that was transformed into multiple of median (MoM). Placental examination was performed for the diagnosis of MVM based on the Amsterdam Placental Workshop Group Consensus Statement. Nonparametric tests and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to compare PlGF in pregnancies with, and without PE, stratified by the presence of MVM.

Third trimester PlGF was lower in PE cases with MVM (N = 20; median: 0.04 MoM; interquartile: 0.03–0.09; p<0.0001), and in controls with MVM (N = 4; 0.30MoM; 0.07–0.52; p = 0.002) compared to controls without MVM (N = 29; 0.99 MoM; 0.67–1.52). PlGF in PE cases without MVM (N = 5; 0.18 MoM; 0.17–1.64) was not significantly different than in controls without MVM but the sample size was small. ROC curve demonstrated a greater predictability of PlGF for PE with MVM than PE without MVM (AUC: 0.99 vs. 0.38; p<0.0001).

Third trimester PlGF is a better predictor of PE associated with MVM than a predictor of PE without MVM. We hypothesize that PlGF is a stronger marker of MVM than PE.