Background: Intrauterine growth re-striction is associated with high inci-dence of perinatal mortality and seri-ous long term morbidity. Ferritin is an iron storage protein and failure of se-rum ferritin level to decrease with ad-vancing pregnancy points to impaired iron extraction by the feto-placental unit leading to asymmetric intrauter-ine growth restriction.
Aim of the study: Evaluation of serum ferritin levels at 30-32 weeks gestation as a marker and a predictor of asym-metrical intrauterine growth re-striction.
Patients and Methods: Blood sample was taken from 145 high risk pregnan-cies at 30-32 weeks in the period from July 2014 to March 2015 for estima-tion of serum ferritin level by the en-zyme linked fluorescent assay method. Data of 115 pregnancies were availa-ble at birth and included 85 cases ap-propriate weight for gestational age, 25 cases with asymmetric intrauterine growth restriction and 5 with cases symmetric intrauterine growth re-striction. Serum ferritin levels were analyzed the mean ± SD, the Student t test, the χ2 test and the receiver operat-ing characteristic curve were used .Results were considered signifi-cant at p value