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Tissue concentration of aldosterone in fetal adrenals of intrauterine death cases

  • Daisy Dwivedi and Bal Chander EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: June 14, 2022

Abstract

Objectives

Fetal adrenals are one of the main organs responsible for maturation and survival. Extant literature is not clear about whether second trimester fetal adrenals are capable of synthesizing secreting aldosterone.

Methods

We have taken 20 adrenals from fetuses of intrauterine death cases. None of the fetuses had any external malformations and obstetric history was unremarkable. The organs were weighed and homogenized. The supernatant was used for aldosterone estimation by ELISA.

Results

We consistently detected aldosterone in all the cases including second trimester. However, we did not see any correlation between aldosterone concentration and gestational age. It is striking to note that there are wide variations in the tissue levels of aldosterone across different gestational ages and also same period.

Conclusions

Tissue aldosterone levels in second trimester can be possibly induced by stress preceding intrauterine deaths. It is possible that functional status of adrenal is different in intrauterine death cases as opposed to elective abortions in second trimester.


Corresponding author: Dr Bal Chander, MD, Pathology, Professor, Department of Pathology, Dr Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College, Tanda, Himachal Pradesh, Kangra, India, Phone: +91 7018064940, E-mail:

Funding source: Intramural reserach grant

Award Identifier / Grant number: 0000

  1. Research funding: None declared.

  2. Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.

  3. Competing interests: Authors state no conflict of interest.

  4. Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individuals included in this study.

  5. Ethical approval: The local Institutional Review Board deemed the study exempt from review.

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Received: 2022-01-19
Accepted: 2022-05-23
Published Online: 2022-06-14
Published in Print: 2022-08-26

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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