@article{3156438,
    title = "Angiopoietin-1 and angiopoietin-2 as serum biomarkers for ectopic
pregnancy and missed abortion A case-control study",
    author = "Daponte, Alexandros and Deligeoroglou, Efthimios and Pournaras, Spyros and and Tsezou, Aspasia and Garas, Antonios and Anastasiadou, Foteini and and Hadjichristodoulou, Christos and Messinis, Ioannis E.",
    journal = "Clinica Chimica Acta",
    year = "2013",
    volume = "415",
    pages = "145-151",
    publisher = "ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV",
    issn = "0009-8981",
    doi = "10.1016/j.cca.2012.10.031",
    keywords = "Angiopoietin; Abortion; Ectopic pregnancy; Biomarker",
    abstract = "Background: A case-control study to evaluate whether a single serum
measurement of angiopoietin-1 (ANG-1) and angiopoietin-2 (ANG-2) at 6-8
weeks gestation can differentiate failed pregnancies, whether ectopic
pregnancies (EP) or missed abortions (MA), from healthy intrauterine
pregnancies (IUP).
Intervention(s): Serum and tissue mRNA determination of ANG-1 and ANG-2
levels by ELISA and RTPCR, from 60 (30 EP and 30 MA) patients with
failed early pregnancy and 33 IUPs.
Results: ANG-1 and ANG-2 concentrations and their ratio are lower in EP
(median, 689 and 302 pg/ml, respectively) and MA cases (median, 810 and
402 pg/ml, respectively) compared to IUP (median, 963 and 1477 pg/ml,
respectively) (p<0.05, for all). Unlike ANG-2, serum ANG-1 discriminates
an EP from a MA (p = 0.011). Trophoblastic ANG-1 mRNA expression levels
are lower in EP compared to MA and IUP (p<0.05), while ANG-2 mRNA is
higher in EP and MA than in IUP (p<0.05).
Conclusions: A single measurement of serum ANG-1 and ANG-2 at 6-8 weeks
of gestation designate the outcome of a pregnancy, as their levels are
significantly decreased in failed than normal pregnancies. Serum ANG-1
showed potential to discriminate MA from EP. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All
rights reserved."
}