Prognostic Value of Human Placental Lactogen (HPL) in an Unselected Obstetrical Population

A prospective study on the value of routine HPL determination as a supplement to clinical antenatal care is presented. The HPL values in the apparently normal pregnant woman were not known to the clinicians. The material comprised 1 660 pregnancies and deliveries, in 87% of which at least one HPL value was available. The results are expressed as the ability of a low HPL value to predict the birth of a distressed infant and/or an infant of low birth weight, a normal HPL value the birth of a non-distressed infant and/or an infant of normal birth weight. Moreover, the results show how many of the distressed infants and infants of low birth weight were born to mothers with low HPL values. Like a number of other authors, we found that HPL screening increases the prognostic reliability in pregnancies with complications. On the other hand, its value in normal pregnancies could not be confirmed.