INTRODUCTION
The recent studies showed that ischemia modified albumin (IMA) is a biochemical marker that can make the early diagnosis of coronary artery illness and cerebrovascular illness (1).
When tissue ischemia occurs, there can be changes in some albumin molecules. Within a few minutes and a few hour duration, ischemia decreases the dependency of albumin on substances like cobalt (2). The discovery of this characteristic paved the way for the development of a new test. Through this test, the amount of ischemia-modified albumin can also be measured by measuring the amount of decrease in metal binding. In acute ischemic cases, metal binding capacity in the N terminus region of albumin and a new variant metabolic protein comes into existence. Hypertensive disease of pregnancy is one of the most frequently seen complications of pregnancy, being 5-10% and it is the most important reason for maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality (3). Preeclampsia develops in an abnormal hypoxic intrauterine environment characterized by reperfusion and oxidative stress. Several lines of evidence suggest that IMA is elevated in pathologies, where hypoxia and/or oxidative stress are found (4). To determine the prenatal hypoxic brain injury resulting as a result of the preeclampsia, various biochemical and biophysical tests were suggested, yet many of them provided a limited number of benefits. The decrease of diastolic blood flow in the umbilical artery and the decrease of resistance in cerebral vessels could be an indicator of placental insufficiency in preeclampsia cases (5).
The most common method used in the prediction of fetal wellbeing is a non-stress test (NST). There are many studies in the literature conducted to predict the fetal wellbeing of NST.
By looking at the post-natal normal and abnormal umbilical artery gas values of the reactive NST patterns, the sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values were found to be respectively 79%, 85%, 68%, 91%.6,7. The search for new tests continues to increase these values. This study determines the use of IMA in predicting the prenatal fetal asphyxia in normal and preeclamptic pregnancies and to evaluate the correlations between IMA, NST and fetal Doppler ultrasonography findings.