178 Birth Asphixia Changes The Concentration of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor

Objectives: To investigate whether birth asphyxia acute or chronic can stimulate secretion of VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) Study designe: We evaluated VEGF protein level in the umbilical blood in 44 healthy neonates (19 term and 25 preterm) and 79 hypoxic neonates. Among the hypoxic newborns 40 was born at term (28 with birth weight appropriate for gestational age - AGA, and 12 with birth weight below 10 percentile-SGA) and 39 was born before 32 week of gestation (25 AGA and 14 SGA). ELISE assay for VEGF was purchased from R&D Systems and used according to instructions.