Turkiye Klinikleri Jinekoloji Obstetrik, vol.24, no.1, pp.16-19, 2014 (Scopus)
Objective: To investigate a possible effect of fetal gender on placental angiogenesis by analysing second trimester amniotic fluid angiogenin and leptin levels in pregnancies with normal karyotype. Material and Methods: Angiogenin and leptin have strong angiogenetic properties. Therefore we retrospectively and randomly identified 48 fetuses (24 male and 24 female) with normal karyotype from our perinatology database in order to analyse their amniotic fluid angiogenin and leptin levels. Angiogenin and leptin levels were measured by ELISA. Kruskal-Wallis test was used to compare the clinical characteristics and Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare angiogenin and leptin levels between male and female fetuses. A value of p<0.05 was considered to be significant. Results: There were no significant differences in median levels of maternal age, weight, gestational age at amniotic fluid sampling, gravidity, parity and body mass index of the two groups. There were no significant changes in amniotic fluid angiogenin and leptin levels between male and female fetuses. Median angiogenin levels were 15.91 ng/ml (range 9.24- 37.91) for male and 20.91 ng/ml (5.69-45.02) for female fetuses (p=0.09); median leptin levels were 15.94 ng/ml (range 2.3039.36) for male and 13.25 ng/ml (3.28-49.23) for female fetuses (p=0.3). Conclusion: Fetal gender does not affect the degree of placental angiogenesis. Copyright © 2014 by Türkiye Klinik leri.