Preeclampsia (PE) characterises by development of hypertension, proteinuria and swelling in pregnant women around 20th pregnancy week. The hemodynamic changes observed in the normal pregnancy comprising renal and cardiovascular adaptations that did not occur in PE. The most important feature of this disease is a pronounced arteriolar vasoconstriction leading to a increase of the peripheral vascular resistance responsable to high blood pressure. Evidences of platelet consumption and endothelial cell disfunction have been observed in PE. Conflicting opinions related to the fibrinolytic system have been raised on the literature including increase, decrease or even no changes in this system preeclamptic compared to normal pregnant women. Efforts have been carried out in order to define hemostatic parameters with diagnostic and prognostic value, considering that PE diagnosis is essentially based on clinical data and often hard to be established. In this way, platelet count, thrombomodulin, thrombin-antithrombin complex and plasminogen activator inhibitor type 2 measurement were performed as helpful parameters for PE diagnosis. However, it remains to be established the usefulness of all these laboratory markers. Recently, it was suggested an association between the occurence of pregnancy complication, including PE, and the presence of genetic mutations which favors the development of thromboembolic events. It has been proposed a hemostatic the assessment in preeclamptic women, even if there was no previous thromboembolic episody, by using thrombotic markers as an useful parameter for planning future pregnancies, once PE recurrence is about 20%.
Hemostasis; Preeclampsia; Thrombotic markers