iCAPPPs
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Capillaroscopy in Pregnancy & Preeclampsia
IRAS ID
204065
Contact name
Tarek Francis Antonios
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
St George's, University of London
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
16/SW/0097, REC Reference number
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
Preeclampsia or toxaemia of pregnancy is a pregnancy specific disorder defined as new onset of high blood pressure (hypertension) and leakage of protein in the urine in the second half of pregnancy (after 20 weeks of gestation). Preeclampsia complicates 3-7% of all pregnancies worldwide and is a major cause of death and disease for mothers and their infants. Furthermore women with a history of preeclampsia are also at increased risk of hypertension, stroke, and heart disease in later life. There is increasing evidence of widespread abnormalities in the small blood vessels called capillaries in this disease.
Using a painless non-invasive technique called “intravital capillaroscopy” we reported for the first time that pregnant women who later on in their pregnancy developed preeclampsia, had reduced numbers of skin capillaries (capillary rarefaction) early in their pregnancy before the onset of preeclampsia and that calculating capillary rarefaction at 20-24 weeks and 27-32 weeks gestation is a significant and reliable predictor of preeclampsia.
This study aims to measure the number of skin capillaries in pregnancy using 2 different devices of “capillary microscopy”, a totally painless non-invasive technique. We will first use a traditional capillaroscopy machine called CAM1 (used in our previous studies and takes about 20 minutes) and a more custom-made microscope called iCAPPPs, which can reduce the test duration to only 5-7 minutes. We wish to compare the results from CAM1 with iCAPP3 to ensure consistency.REC name
South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/SW/0097
Date of REC Opinion
7 Apr 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion