{"doi":"10.1159/000530862","title":"Further Evidence that an Episode of Premature Labor Is a Pathologic State: Involvement of the Insulin-Like Growth Factor System","abstract":"INTRODUCTION: Approximately 47% of women with an episode of preterm labor deliver at term; however, their infants are at greater risk of being small for gestational age and for neurodevelopmental disorders. In these cases, a pathologic insult may disrupt the homeostatic responses sustaining pregnancy. We tested the hypothesis of an involvement of components of the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) system. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study in which maternal plasma concentrations of pregnancy-associated plasma protease (PAPP)-A, PAPP-A2, insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 1 (IGFBP-1), and IGFBP-4 were determined in the following groups of women: (1) no episodes of preterm labor, term delivery (controls, n = 100); (2) episode of preterm labor, term delivery (n = 50); (3) episode of preterm labor, preterm delivery (n = 100); (4) pregnant women at term not in labor (n = 61); and (5) pregnant women at term in labor (n = 61). Pairwise differences in maternal plasma concentrations of PAPP-A, PAPP-A2, IGFBP-1, and IGFBP-4 among study groups were assessed by fitting linear models on log-transformed data and included adjustment for relevant covariates. Significance of the group coefficient in the linear models was assessed via t-scores, with p < 0.05 deemed a significant result. RESULTS: Compared to controls, (1) women with an episode of premature labor, regardless of a preterm or a term delivery, had higher mean plasma concentrations of PAPP-A2 and IGFBP-1 (each p < 0.05); (2) women with an episode of premature labor who delivered at term also had a higher mean concentration of PAPP-A (p < 0.05); and (3) acute histologic chorioamnionitis and spontaneous labor at term were not associated with significant changes in these analytes. CONCLUSION: An episode of preterm labor involves the IGF system, supporting the view that the premature activation of parturition is a pathologic state, even in those women who delivered at term.","journal":"Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy","year":2023,"id":371187,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":6,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9562,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":236857,"name":"Roberto Romero","orcid":"0000-0002-4448-5121","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":344147,"name":"Tinnakorn Chaiworapongsa","orcid":"0000-0001-5108-3369","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":236861,"name":"Nardhy Gomez‐Lopez","orcid":"0000-0002-3406-5262","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1131296,"name":"Anderson Lo","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275422,"name":"José Galaz","orcid":"0000-0002-8160-8581","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1131297,"name":"Andreea B Taran","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":240935,"name":"Eunjung Jung","orcid":"0000-0003-0897-0039","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":771020,"name":"Francesca Gotsch","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":344145,"name":"Nándor Gábor Than","orcid":"0000-0001-9385-7019","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":236858,"name":"Adi L. Tarca","orcid":"0000-0003-1712-7588","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":622076,"name":"Priya Prasad","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":96,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:15:45.330525Z","pmid":"37231893","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}