Placental Elasticity as a New Non-invasive Predictive Marker of Pre-eclampsia

Abstract Point shear wave elastography is an ultrasonography technique used to evaluate tissue elasticity. We examined whether placental elasticity is useful for predicting the onset of pre-eclampsia. Two hundred twenty-one participants were divided into two groups: one group at low risk (n = 185) and the other at high risk (n = 36) for pre-eclampsia. The two groups were compared with respect to shear wave velocity (SWV) of the placenta. Use of SWV as a predictor of pre-eclampsia was also investigated by creating a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The ROC curve was used to set a cutoff SWV value for predicting pre-eclampsia. The SWV of the high-risk group was significantly higher than that of the low-risk group ( p