Does active smoking influence the second trimester biochemical markers concentrations?

Abstract

Cigarette smoke contains over 7000 different substances some of them exerting harmful effects on embryo and pregnant woman. Nowadays 15 % of adult people and around 10-15% of pregnant women smoke. Previous studies showed that cigarette smoke compounds could exert pharmacodinamic effects and influence some of the second trimester biochemical markers concentration. Therefore there is a need to adjust the reference values of second trimester markers depending of the smoker status. The aim of our study was to analyse which of the markers are influenced by smoking and whether the software used to calculate the risk for aneuploidies is able to counterbalance this influence. Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), chorionic gonadotropin hormone (hCG) and free estriol (uE3) values were measured in second trimester sera of 1242 pregnant women: 1089 non-smokers and 153 smokers. Only hCG second trimester values were influenced by smoking whereas AFP and uE3 values were not. The correction of medians according to the smoking status was able to counterbalance this effect.