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Serum uric acid in first trimester as a predictor for the diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus-a prospective study

Background Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is common worldwide. It is a disorder of carbohydrate metabolism. Indian women have increased risk of developing GDM, and leads to adverse Maternal and neonatal outcomes. Women with raised uric acid in pregnancy are interlinked with more incidence of unfavorable outcomes in pregnancy such as GDM. Hence this study is done to prove the utility of uric acid in early diagnosis of GDM by starting early treatment so as to reduce the complications in pregnant women.

Methods The antenatal women are screened for GDM by serum uric acid levels with gestational age <12 weeks. These antenatal women are followed up around 24-28 weeks and oral glucose tolerance test is done and evaluated for GDM using ADA criteria.

Results In our study, serum uric acid cut–off of 4.2 mg/dl had a positive association with the GTT values with p value less than 0.05 (p=0.018). In this study, in the raised serum uric acid category, 8 (19%) were positive for GTT and among the normal serum uric acid category, 3 (4.7%) were positive for GTT. Thus, we observe from our study that elevated levels of uric acid during the first trimester is interlinked with prediction of gestational diabetes.

Conclusions The diagnosis of serum uric acid level in first trimester as a predictor of GDM is easy and economical and it can be used as a screening test for prediction of GDM.