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INTRODUCTION: Pre-eclampsia is responsible for a great number of maternal deaths in our country. Even in urban areas that, theoretically, has more access to information and more medical assistance possibilities, much more women have very severe cases that could be avoided. Many initiatives to reduce this problem include effective women participation in that item, making us to believe that actual information access would allow precocious detection of the problem, leading to reduction of the maternal and perinatal risks. OBJECTIVES: To investigate a specific female population about how much they understand about the disease and its risks. METHODS: Using the social net Facebook®, a survey was developed for online use, where direct questions related to pre-eclampsia were made. The questions involved information about age, times of pregnancy, knowledge about pre-eclampsia and their risks. It was considered an inclusion criterion the women who decided to participate in the survey spontaneously, and their identity was preserved. This form was sent to 1000 women, and 120 fully answered the questions and they were put under analysis. RESULTS: The studied group had average age between 22 and 35years. From the total, 107 (89.6%) had at least initiated high school, and the rest (11%) said that they had at least finished elementary school. From the analyzed data, it was found that 60 (50%) of the interviewed women, did not know anything about the subject. The rest said that they had some knowledge about the topic. From those, 14 (23%) had already heard about pre-eclampsia, but did not know what was it, 44 (73%) had a vaguely notion but did not know about the risks, and just 2 (4%) gave the entirely correct definition and knew about its implications. From all, 24 (20%) from the interviewed had at least once been pregnant, and 15 from those, had never heard about the pathology. CONCLUSION: Despite of the impact that pre-eclampsia represents on mother and baby's health, our results show that information in the studied group, is poor. The studied group has naturally more access to information, showing us that the situation is even more concerning. We believe that it is necessary to apply instruments that could redefine, in a greater way, the real information level to the female population in all levels of assistance. To enlarge the health politics, and increase its efficiency through informed women, seem to us, a fundamental strategy to qualify assistance and enhance maternal and prenatal safety. In an era that social nets had changed human behavior, why should not we use it as an efficient tool to promote life quality?
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INTRODUCTION: Progressive proteinuria and glomerulosclerosis characterize chronic allograft nephropathy. However, the causes are not fully elucidated. Injury of parietal epithelial cells in glomeruli, the podocytes, is the initiating cause of many renal diseases, leading to proteinuria with possible progression to glomerulosclerosis. Podocytes are highly specialized cells, with an important role in maintaining the glomerular filtration barrier and producing growth factor for mesangial cells and endothelial cells. With their foot processes they cover the glomerular basement membrane, and form slit diaphragms with neighboring podocytes. The potential role of podocytes in the failing transplanted kidney is unknown. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate podocyturia as a functional marker in pregnant women with kidney grafts. METHODS: Twenty pregnant women with kidney grafts had their urine samples cytocentrifugated and evaluated by indirect immunofluorescence. The slide was incubated for 45' at room temperature with fluorescein (FITC) anti-rabbit IgG secondary antibody (Sigma-Aldrich, EUA). Then Vectashield (mounting medium for fluorescence) with DAPI (4'6-diamino-2-fenilindol dihidrocloreto) were applied H-1200 (Vector laboratories, inc, USA). The podocytes and the total number of cells were counted in 15 fields photographed under 400x magnification with a digital camera coupled to an epifluorescence microscope DM1000 (Leica, Germany) connected to a computer. The results were expressed as podocyte/total cells (%) per area of higher cell concentration (hot spots) in the field of 400x detected by staining of nuclei and cytoplasm. (Grant FAPESP 08/56338-1). RESULTS: The mean age of the women was 26years. The urinalysis was performed at the third trimester of gestation; 11 did not exhibit urinary podocytes and 9 had podocyturia. There was also a relationship between blood pressure levels, proteinuria and the excretion of podocytes. CONCLUSION: Urinary podocyte number, blood pressure and proteinuria were associated. We observed that urinary podocyte excretion occurs in pregnant women with kidney transplant almost synchronously with higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure and higher mean levels of proteinuria. The detection of podocyturia in these women could be useful for early diagnosis and follow-up of glomerular injury, eventually preeclampsia. It may be also associated to its severity or activity, although additional studies are necessary to confirm these aspects.
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INTRODUCTION: Preeclampsia (PE) affects 5-8% of all pregnant women and can trigger a severe gestational hypertension framework and eventually develop into eclampsia and HELLP syndrome. Anticipating the damage would be important in order to establish procedures that can reduce adverse outcomes. For this reason, many researches are undertaken to identify ways to make a diagnosis of preeclampsia as early as possible. It has been highlighted in literature the study: the sFlt1 (soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase-1) has been implicated in the precocious diagnosis of pre eclampsia. The sFlt1 is an anti-angiogenic factor produced in response to oxidative stress derived from the deleterious effects of pre-eclampsia. OBJECTIVES: The objective of the study was to evaluate the role of Soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase-1 in the diagnosis of preeclampsia. METHODS: This is a review conducted in the database PubMed and Lilacs. For this purpose, we used the following MeSH, "Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor-1" OR "FLT1 protein, human" AND "Pre-Eclampsia/diagnosis" in PubMed and "Pre-eclampsia" AND "SFLT1A" in Lilacs, resulting in 84 papers. After reading the abstracts of these studies, we selected the articles analyzed taking into consideration the criteria for inclusion and exclusion. We excluded publications that were not in the period under study (2008 to July 2011) and by study design. Including only case-control, cohort and prospective observational. For a critical analysis of the material, we used the following indicators: researcher, years, central theme, participants, study design and primary outcome. RESULTS: The final results of this study were composed of seven articles and are shown for each target outcome. These vary according to gestational age at which PE is installed and the marker studied (sFlt1 alone or its relation to PlGF - sFlt1/PIGF). Six studies showed greater levels of sFlt1 for the preeclampsia groups when compared to the control group. Significantly differences in antiangiogenic factors seric levels were not found among preeclamptic and eclamptic patients. When associated with another factor, like PIGF, a greater efficacy in the diagnosis of early preeclampsia is shown. Of the studies analyzed, only one (Lynch et al) showed no significant difference between the values of sFlt-1 in groups of early PE, late PE and control for gestational ages between 10 and 15 weeks. As for the relation sFlt-1/PIGF, five studies have considered it even better for PE diagnosis when compared to sFlt-1 isolated. CONCLUSION: The dosage of sFlt1 may be a relevant resource for the early diagnosis of preeclampsia before the installation of target organ damage, especially if measured in the period between 12 and 28 weeks of gestational age. Whereas sFlt-1 manifests itself before the 20th week, that may be interesting clinical point of view since it is this phase that settles the most severe cases, when the adoption of care could prevent further risks. The relationship sFlt1/PIGF, was more appropriate than the measurement of sFlt1 alone. Additional studies are needed to: amplification of the number of women evaluated, establishing gestational age appropriate for study, serum standard and need to consider the relationship between sFlt1 and other factors pro and/or anti-angiogenic.
