Deficiency Of Calcium And Microelements Predict The Risk Of Fetal Growth Restriction

Our study aimed to investigate the correlation between the concentrations of calcium (Ca), iron (Fe), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), iodine (I) in peripheral blood of different pregnancy trimesters and fetal growth restriction (FGR) risk. A total of 233 pregnant women were recruited in this cohort study. The blood specimens were obtained from all the pregnant women at early pregnancy (pregnancy within 13 weeks), middle pregnancy (between 14th and 27th weeks) and late pregnancy (above 28 weeks). And the concentrations of Ca, Fe, Cu, Zn, I were subsequently determined. Among 233 analyzed patients, 25 cases were diagnosed as FGR with incidence rate 10.7%, which were divided into FGR group, while other 198 cases were included in non-FGR group. Despite of no difference in Cu concentration in middle pregnancy (P=0.184), levels of Ca, Fe, Cu, Zn and I markedly decreased in FGR group compared to non-FGR group in early, middle and late pregnancies (all P<0.05). Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves were performed to evaluate the predictive value of candidate elements for FGR risk. When combined the five elements, the area under curve (AUC) for FGR was 0.875 (95% CI: 0.790-0.960) in early pregnancy, 0.895 (95% CI: 0.837-0.953) in middle pregnancy and 0.919 (95% CI: 0.850-0.988) in late pregnancy. Our study manifested that combined measurement of Ca, Fe, Cu, Zn and I could be a promising biomarker for predicting the risk of FGR.