Precision Diagnostics by Affinity-Mass Spectrometry: A Novel Approach for Fetal Growth Restriction Screening during Pregnancy

Fetal growth restriction (FGR) affects about 3% to 8% of pregnancies, leading to higher perinatal mortality and morbidity. Current strategies for detecting fetal growth impairment are based on ultrasound inspections. However, antenatal detection rates are insufficient and critical in countries with substandard care. To overcome difficulties with detection and to better discriminate between high risk FGR and low risk small for gestational age (SGA) fetuses, we investigated the suitability of risk assessment based on the analysis of a recently developed proteome profile derived from maternal serum in different study groups. Maternal serum, collected at around 31 weeks of gestation, was analyzed in 30 FGR, 15 SGA, and 30 control (CTRL) pregnant women who delivered between 31 and 40 weeks of gestation. From the 75 pregnant women of this study, 2 were excluded because of deficient raw data and 2 patients could not be grouped due to indeterminate results. Consistency between proteome profile and sonography results was obtained for 59 patients (26 true positive and 33 true negative). Of the proteome profiling 12 contrarious grouped individuals, 3 were false negative and 9 were false positive cases with respect to ultrasound data. Both true positive and false positive grouping transfer the respective patients to closer surveillance and thorough pregnancy management. Accuracy of the test is considered high with an area-under-curve value of 0.88 in receiver-operator-characteristics analysis. Proteome profiling by affinity-mass spectrometry during pregnancy provides a reliable method for risk assessment of impaired development in fetuses and consumes just minute volumes of maternal peripheral blood. In addition to clinical testing proteome profiling by affinity-mass spectrometry may improve risk assessment, referring pregnant women to specialists early, thereby improving perinatal outcomes.