Fetuin B may be a potential marker for predicting maternal and neonatal outcomes in intrahepatic cholestasis: Prospective Case-Control Study

Objectives: To investigate the levels of serum fetuin B in healthy pregnant women and pregnant women with Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (IHCP) and its association with pregnancy outcomes.
Method:
This was a prospective case-control study, we included sixty singleton pregnant women with IHCP and sixty healthy-matched pregnant women in the third trimester. The serum fetuin B levels of these patients were analyzed. All the patients were followed up prospectively till delivery and data related to maternal, perinatal, and neonatal outcomes were obtained.
Results:
Total bile acid levels and liver function tests were significantly higher in the IHCP group than in the control group (p < 0.0001 and < 0.0001, respectively). The serum fetuin B concentrations were higher in the IHCP group than in the control group, without any significant group difference (p = 0.105). The preterm delivery, iatrogenic preterm delivery, and birth weight ≤ 2500 gm are only significantly associated with serum fetuin B levels respectively (p<0.05). The diagnostic performance of serum bile acids (AUC = 0.998) was significantly better than that of fetuin-B (AUC = 0.586) (DeLong's Test p = <0.001).
Conclusion:
We neither noted a significant difference between the IHCP and control groups with regard to the serum fetuin B levels nor could we correlate its levels with adverse maternal and perinatal outcomes except with birth weight, thereby serum fetuin B was not an effective marker for use in shedding light on the pathophysiology of IHCP.