EPIC study

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Elucidating a common Pathophysiology between pre-eclampsia and fetal and maternal Impairment in Cardiac function (EPIC) – a cohort study

• IRAS ID

  314317

• Contact name

  Fionnuala Mone

• Contact email

  fionnuala.mone@belfasttrust.hscni.net

• Sponsor organisation

  Queen's University Belfast

• Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier

  N/A, N/A

• Duration of Study in the UK

  3 years, 0 months, 1 days

• Research summary

  Pre-eclampsia and heart disease are two of the top ten causes of maternal death in the UK. Pre-eclampsia is when a mother has high blood pressure and protein in her urine during pregnancy and is associated with a poor outcome for both mothers and their babies. This is thought to be caused by the baby, the placenta or potentially the heart function of the mother, but the disease is not yet fully understood. While mothers having heart disease in pregnancy is rare, it is a leading cause of death in pregnancy. Babies in the womb can have heart problems in around 1% of pregnancies. This can sometimes cause them to have altered heart function in the womb or after birth and remains one of the leading causes of infant death internationally. Again, we do not fully understand why some babies are born with such heart problems and others are not and also why there is an association between babies with heart problems and mothers developing pre-eclampsia.
  In order to further investigate the hypothesised link between maternal/ fetal heart disease and pre-eclampsia we propose a prospective study. This will look at some existing work looking at a novel blood test LRG-1 alongside some other blood tests associated with heart disease. We aim to look at pregnant women with and without heart disease, and mums carrying babies with and without heart disease to see if these blood tests can help to predict deteriorating heart function during pregnancy and whether these pregnancies are more at risk of developing pre-eclampsia.

• REC name

  HSC REC A

• REC reference

  22/NI/0103

• Date of REC Opinion

  21 Jul 2022

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion