Strengths and Limitations
The strengths of the study are the prospective design, the clinic
homogeneity of our population (all with early-onset severe PE), and that
all patients were managed per standardized protocols with low
variability in care. Additionally, the baseline score-risk we used
included de gestational age as a strong predictor of perinatal
complications and we tested both angiogenic factors and their ratio.
Among the limitations, we acknowledge that nowadays the presence of
proteinuria is not mandatory for the definition of PE however at the
start of the study it was. Secondly, the relatively small sample size
precluded the inclusion of more predictors in the model and the
validation of the results. Moreover, the study lacks information on the
long-term follow-up of the neonates.