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Comprehensive analysis of macrosomia: exploring the association between first-trimester alanine aminotransferase and uric acid measurements in pregnant women

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Published/Copyright: July 26, 2023

Abstract

Objectives

Investigating the relationship between liver enzymes, uric acid (UA), and macrosomia will benefit physicians in the early detection of complications that may emerge during/after pregnancy. The study analyzed liver enzyme activity and UA levels in first-trimester pregnant for the risk of macrosomia.

Methods

This retrospective cross-sectional research analyzed the data of pregnant women who gave birth between Jan 2021–2023. All data were extracted from medical records, and UA and AST-ALT were examined in all the participants.

Results

Aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels were higher in the macrosomia (p<0.05). Similarly, UA levels were higher in the macrosomia (p<0.001). There was a moderate positive correlation between ALT and birth weight (r=0.168, p<0.01), while we found a strong positive correlation between UA and birth weight (r=0.355, p<0.01). In the ROC (receiver operating characteristic), Area Under the Curve (AUC) for ALT and UA was significant (p<0.0001) but not for AST (p=0.157). UA showed a predictive value for macrosomia with 68.1 % sensitivity and 63.8 % specificity at a 3.15 cut-off (AUC:0.689; p:0.0001; CI:0.644–0.725).

Conclusions

These results indicate that ALT and UA may be potentially important in determining the risk of macrosomia. The UA had a more potent marker for macrosomia than ALT. The occurrence of macrosomia might be more closely related to the mother’s metabolic syndrome rather than NAFLD.


Corresponding author: Ali Turhan Caglar, MD, Professor, Department of Perinatology, Etlik City Hospital, 06170, Ankara, Türkiye, Phone: +90 532 435 68 70, E-mail:

  1. Research funding: The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

  2. Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission. S.B.A and A.T.C. performed project development, study conception and design, data collection, analysis, and manuscript writing and preparation.

  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: Approval for the present study was granted by the Review Board of our hospital and the Institution’s Ethics Committee (Approval ID: 18/2022).

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Received: 2023-05-13
Accepted: 2023-07-05
Published Online: 2023-07-26
Published in Print: 2023-10-26

© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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