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Abstract
In the past few decades, great improvements and technological advances have been achieved in perinatal care. However, the rate of preterm delivery (PTD) has not decreased, complicating approximately 10% of all births and accounting for the majority of perinatal mortality and long-term morbidity.
Although the pathophysiology of preterm delivery remains largely unknown, accumulating evidence indicates that subclinical infections, intrauterine infection and chronic inflammation as etiologic factors that subsequently cause preterm labor (PTL) and premature rupture of membranes(PROM). Efforts have been made to try and identify clinical, bacteriological and biochemical markers that could predict preterm labor. Ferritin is an iron storage protein, that when increased is considered to be an acute phase reactant during inflammation.
Among many obstetricians,there hasbeen great suspicion that “silent” infection is a common accompaniment and cause of preterm labor. The term “silent” is used to describe a condition in which intrauterine infection exists but there is little or no clinical evidence in the pregnant woman, and sometimes micro-organisms cannot be cultured from the amniotic fluid.
Traditional attempts at premature birth prevention have focused, with limited success, on stopping uterine contractions.
It is therefore crucial to develop new markers that can identify the causes of premature labor before they begin. Much of this work focuses on the identification of various factors that will predict when contractions begin. In this respect, several newly discovered pregnancy associated proteins as well as acute phase reactant as serum ferritin has been found to be promising early markers for premature contractions and delivery.