Results
Two hundred women were recruited in the study. The average age was
30.01±3.88 years old, ranging from 23 to 42 years old. The ongoing
pregnancy group included 150 women, aging at 29.73±3.65 years old on
average. 42 women (28%) had a history of recurrent pregnancy loss(two
or more pregnancy losses, either clinical or chemical). 50 women
suffered from inevitable abortion, aging at 30.82±4.44 years old on
average, among which 12 women (24%) had a history of recurrent
pregnancy loss. There were no statistically significant differences
between the two groups in terms of age(P =0.123) and history of
recurrent pregnancy loss(P =0.581).
We compared serum E2 and β-HCG levels weekly between the two groups.
Table 1 shows that at the 4th week of pregnancy, E2 and β-HCG levels of
the inevitable group and the ongoing pregnancy group have no remarkable
differences in statistics, whereas from the 5th week to 10th week, E2
and β-HCG levels of the ongoing pregnancy group were significantly
higher than that of the inevitable abortion group. Their changes over
time are depicted in figure 1. Serum β-HCG of the ongoing pregnancy
women increased more drastically than that of the inevitable abortion
women. The disparity enlarged as the gestational age increased. The E2
levels in the ongoing pregnancy group increased continuously from the
4th week to 10th week. In contrast, it showed little increase in the
inevitable abortion women. Figure 2 and Table 2 depict the sensitivity
and specificity values of E2 levels as predicted by ROC curve analysis
from the 5th to 8th week of gestational age. We use E2 cut-off level of
489.5 pg/ml in the 5th and 6th weeks, 590.5 pg/ml in the 7th week and
614.5 pg/ml in the 8th week. The sensitivity and specificity for E2 to
predict bad pregnancy outcome were 91.7% and 41.5%, 82.9% and 71.1%,
84.8% and 84.7%, 75.0% and 95.7%, respectively (P <
0.05).
Growth rates of the two hormones are presented in Table 3. In the
ongoing pregnancy group, the growth of E2 kept at a rate of 40%-60%
weekly. The β-HCG level increased rapidly in the beginning of the
gestational period; the growth rate slowed down as the embryo grew up.
Both E2 and β-HCG levels of the ongoing pregnancy group rose much more
rapidly than those of the inevitable abortion group.
Table 4 shows the proportion of four types of E2’s variation in each
group. 80% women in the ongoing pregnancy group presented continuous
increase of E2 level, and no one was classified as continuous decrease
or sudden drop. In the inevitable abortion group, women all failed to
show continuous increase of E2, and the other three types of E2 level
variations accounted for 54.0%, 34.0%, and 12.0%, respectively.