Aim: Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) is an important inhibitor of the fibrinolytic system, so it is biologically plausible that elevated levels could suppress fibrinolysis and result in an increased risk of thrombosis. There is considerable controversy regarding the clinical role of PAI-1 4G/5G polymorphism as a risk factor of pre-eclampsia. Here, the author performs a summative analysis on the recent previous reports on the PAI-1 4G/5G and its correlation to pre-eclampsia.
Method: The metanalysis was performed in order to assess the correlation between the pattern of PAI-1 4G/5G polymorphism and pre-eclampsia. From the available six case-control studies, 880 patients and 810 controls are evaluated.
Results: The overall frequencies of 4G allele for the patients and controls are 49.9 and 44.4, respectively. According to this study, 54.9% of subjects with 4G allele have pre-eclampsia while 43.1% of subjects without 4G allele have pre-eclampsia. From overall risk estimation, the subjects with 4G alleles have 1.27 times higher risk to pre-eclampsia.
Conclusion: According to this analysis, the author proposes that the pattern of PAI-1 4G/5G polymorphism might represent a useful marker of increased risk for pre-eclampsia. In addition, the lack of association between pattern of PAI-1 4G/5G and ethnicity of the patients can be demonstrated in this study.