CREATININE CLEARANCE AS A MARKER FOR DIAGNOSING THE SEVERITY OF PREECLEMPSIA

Background: For many years, creatinine clearance has become increasingly popular because of several advantages. The major error arises in clearance test when the timing of urine collection is inaccurate and the bladder is incompletely empty.

Aim: In view of the aforementioned controversial literature, it was decided to evaluate the relation-ship between the renal changes (creatinine clearance) in pre-eclamptic, eclamptic, preeclamptic toxeaemic, non-pregnant and normal pregnant women.

Setting and Design: The present investigations were undertaken to study creatinine clearance in normal non-pregnant women, pregnant women in different trimesters, Preeclamptic toxaemic patients and eclamptic patients, between the age group 25-32 years admitted in Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences, Ranchi during the period from June 2008 to September 2009.

Methods and Material: Control group consisted of 15 normal non-pregnant women, 10 cases in first trimester, 30 cases in 2^nd trimester, 20 cases in 3^rd trimester, 60 cases of Preeclamptic toxaemia and 20 cases of eclampsia. Creatinine clearance measurements were done by enzymatic method and modified Jaffe’s kinetic method.

Statical Analysis: Statistical analysis was performed using GraphPad Prism version 5.00 for Windows, GraphPad software, San Diego, CAUSA, www.graphpad.com.

Results:  Creatinine clearance, in normal non-pregnant cases, the mean was 102.63 ml/min. In eclamptic cases, the mean found was around 71.98 ml/min. The difference between group is highly significant except when control and mild cases were compared (p>0.005).

Conclusions: Clearance fall gradually in cases from mild to severe. However, it is a good index to gauge the renal status in these patients.