Clinical differences between early-onset HELLP syndrome and early-onset preeclampsia during pregnancy and at least 6 months postpartum

Abstract

Objective: We sought to evaluate whether clinical and laboratory variables differ between former patients who had HELLP syndrome and former patients who had preeclampsia (PE) without HELLP.

Study design: We compared early-onset HELLP (n = 75) with early-onset PE (n = 40) with respect to clinical features during the hypertensive complication and to metabolic, hemodynamic, and hemostatic variables determined at least 6 months postpartum.

Results: HELLP differed from PE by a borderline higher frequency of eclampsia (13% vs 3%) during the complication, and by a lower prevalence of hypertension (19% vs 33%), proteinuria (2% vs 23%), thrombophilia (6% vs 27%), obesity (9% vs 33%), hypertriglyceridemia (1% vs 15%), hyperglycemia (0% vs 11%), and elevated levels of fasting homocysteine (6% vs 21%) at least 6 months postpartum.

Conclusion: Women with HELLP had fewer signs of abnormalities consistent with the metabolic syndrome and a 4-fold lower prevalence of thrombophilia as compared with PE women without HELLP.