Maternal lipids in pre-eclampsia: Innocent bystander or culprit?

Abstract

Pre-eclampsia continues to be a challenge - to understand the underlying pathogenesis and to prevent or treat in the clinical setting. One area of potential therapies opening up is treatment of maternal lipids and clinical trials are underway using statins in early pre-eclampsia. At present, most potential therapies to treat lipids cannot be recommended for general use in pregnancy and if we were to target maternal lipids to reduce rates of pre-eclampsia, very large numbers of women may need to be treated. Prior to reaching that point, we first need to understand whether maternal lipids are pathogenic in the processes underlying pre-eclampsia. The aim of this review is to examine the role of lipids in the pathogenesis and outcomes of pre-eclampsia, how abnormal lipid genes may be implicated and consider whether treatment of hyperlipidemia has a more general place in the prevention or treatment of pre-eclampsia.