Study of serum homocysteine, folic acid & vitamin B12 levels in preeclampsia patients of a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

The present study is undertaken to assess the levels of serum homocysteine, folic acid and vitamin B12 and to find their correlation in pre-eclampsia patients. It was a cross-sectional, descriptive hospital-based study. The duration of the study was 12months.The study was undertaken in Department of Biochemistry in collaboration with Department of Gynecology & Obstetrics of College of Medicine & JNM Hospital, Kalyani. Forty pre-eclamptic patients in the age group of 18–40 years were selected as cases & forty age & sex matched normotensive pregnant women were randomly selected as controls. A total of 40 pre-eclampsia patients were studied majority (80%) of the participants belonging to Hindu community. Among the cases, serum homocysteine levels showed statistically significant increase (P<0.001) whereas, folic acid and vitamin B12 levels showed significant decrease (P<0.001) A negative and significant correlation was observed between serum homocysteine compared with vitamin B12.From the study it can be concluded that increased Homocysteine levels in pregnancy is a risk factor for development of preeclampsia.