Significance of leukocyte and platelet counts in hypertensive disorders of pregnancy-A retrospective study in a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Background: Hypertensive disorders in pregnancy are a spectrum of disorders ranging from gestational hypertension, pre-eclampsia to eclampsia and chronic hypertension superimposed by pre-eclampsia. With an incidence of 7-15% complicating pregnancies, several theories have been stated to define the pathogenesis. Inflammation per se is also found to have its part in the pathogenesis of hypertension. Objective: To evaluate and compare the inflammatory mediators namely the leukocyte count, platelet count, absolute neutrophil count, absolute lymphocyte count, neutrophil lymphocyte ratio and platelet lymphocyte ratio among the hypertensive disorders in pregnancy. Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective study done at a tertiary care hospital including all women admitted with hypertension in pregnancy from 26th April 2016 to 31st March 2019. Patients with singleton pregnancy with hypertension were included and those with prelabour rupture of membranes or concomitant infection were excluded. Patients were divided into four groups, chronic hypertension, and gestational hypertension, non-severe and severe preeclampsia. The total and differential leukocyte counts at admission were accessed from the medical records and statistical analysis was done. Results: Out of 4860 deliveries, 294 patients were diagnosed with hypertensive disorders (6.04%). Of the 294, those belonging to chronic hypertension, gestational hypertension, non-severe and severe preeclampsia were 43 (14.6%), 128(43.5%), 52(17.7%) and 71(24.1%) respectively. A p value of < 0.05 was considered significant. It was found that there was a significant difference among the groups in mean age and chronic hypertension was found to have a higher mean age than the other groups. The mean platelet count was also found to be significantly higher in chronic hypertension as compared to other groups. There was no significant difference in both mean total and mean differential leukocyte counts, ANC, ALC, NLR and PLR among the four groups.