Comparison of VEGF-A Values between Pregnant Women with COVID-19 and Healthy Pregnancies and Its Association with Composite Adverse Outcomes.

OBJECTIVE To compare VEGF-A values between pregnant women with Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and healthy controls. Furthermore, the association of inflammation parameters, disease severity and obstetric complications with VEGF-A was investigated. METHODS This prospective case-control study was conducted on pregnant women who were admitted to Ankara City Hospital between 14 June 2020 and 28 August 2020. Pregnant women with COVID-19 (n=95) were compared with a control group of healthy pregnant women (n=92) with similar clinical and demographic characteristics. Demographic featues, clinical characteristics, laboratory test results, VEGF-A values were compared between the groups. A correlation analysis was performed between VEGF-A levels, inflammation parameters and clinical characteristics of the cases for pregnant women with COVID-19. VEGF-A levels were also compared between patients with composite adverse outcome and patients without any complication in the COVID-19 group. RESULTS Two groups were similar except for obstetric complications (p>0.05). Obstetric complication rate was higher in the COVID-19 group (p=0.02). Two groups were comparable in terms of neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio and VEGF-A values. VEGF-A values were slightly different between the trimesters. A negative moderate statistically significant correlation was found between the neutrophil and VEGF-A values (r=-0.231, p=0.02).VEGF-A values were similar between patients with and without composite adverse outcomes (p>0.05). CONCLUSION VEGF-A values were similar between pregnant women with COVID-19 and healthy controls. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.