Characterization of systolic and diastolic pressure time series in pregnant women with preeclampsia through symbolic dynamics

Preeclampsia (PE) is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality worldwide. Although clinical strategies to prevent the early onset of PE have been proposed, the ultimate solution is to end the pregnancy. Therefore, patients’ identification with major PE risk is important towards the prevention and better management of a severe manifestation of the illness. This study aims to analyze the systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) time series through a nonlinear perspective using symbolic dynamics and to incorporate a multi-scale assessment in the first trimester of pregnancy, previous to the clinical manifestation of PE. The study group of normotensive women who developed and were diagnosed with PE included 14 pregnant women, a normotensive throughout pregnancy control group (N) consisting of 14 participants, and a group of 14 normotensive women during pregnancy without comorbidities (S) were matched with PE by age, body mass index, gestational age and comorbidities. The preliminary results of this study showed a decreased complexity of SBP, assessed by multiscale symbolic entropy in the first trimester in PE patients, in comparison with normotensive pregnant women.Clinical relevance— This work shows how nonlinear analysis of systolic and diastolic blood pressure time series are useful to detect preeclampsia in the first trimester of pregnancy.