Blood based test can distinguish between true and false labor

A new study has revealed that a blood based test can now tell that threatened preterm labor (TPTL) women's are ready for the birth or not.

Professor Stephen Lye said that it will help in properly attending the pregnant women who actually needs the appropriate medical care while women in false labor will receive supportive care and be discharged and it will avoid unnecessarily hospitalization of women.

Fetal fibronectin (fFN), the current preterm labor diagnostic test, is easily influenced by factors that can provide false results; therefore, many women are ineligible for fFN testing.

So to study the blood gene expression associated with the spontaneous premature birth within 48 hours in women admitted with TPTL, the scientist used microarrays.

The study found that set of nine genes when coupled with clinical blood data, could classify whether 70% of hospitalized women would or would not have a spontaneous preterm birth within 48 hours.

The study was published in the open access journal Plos One.