A novel prenatal index predicting the probability of neonatal intensive care in pregnants: amnion progesterone receptor to alfa fetoprotein rate.

Introduction: Amniocentesis (AC) is the most used interventional procedure for prenatal diagnosis. The study aims to evaluate the pregnancy outcomes undergoing AC and the potential of amnion progesterone receptor (aPR) to alfa fetoprotein (AFP) rate for predicting the probability of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

Material and methods: This prospective cross-sectional study population consisted of 85 pregnant women who underwent mid-trimester AC. All cases were screened by ultrasound before AC. Maternal venous and amniotic samples were obtained simultaneously to evaluate the serum progesterone (sPRG), aPR, and aAFP and analyzed with patient results.

Results: Unlike sPRG and aAFP, aPR showed a positive correlation with NICU and a negative correlation with parity. In linear regression, the aPR-AFP rate showed strong linearity with NICU and parity. In an aPR-AFP rate analysis, we saw a strong predictivity for NICU compared to the other three parameters. It presented 73.4% specificity and 79% sensitivity at 0.0075 cut-off (AUC: 0.78; p = 0.003; 95% CI: 0.608-0.914).

Conclusions: Evaluating the PR either alone or in a rational combination with AFP will provide physicians with valuable information about the advanced process of pregnancy and postpartum complications. The physicians might use the aPR-AFP rate to predict NICU potential for pregnancy and need further studies to make more vital predictions on postpartum complications.