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Pregnant patients infected with COVID-19 tend to have higher rates of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP). Could monoclonal antibody (mAB) treatment for COVID-19 alter HDP rates? That’s the exact question a poster presented at the 2023 ACOG Annual Clinical and Scientific Meeting sought to answer.

How the Study Was Designed

This was a retrospective cohort study of patients aged 12 and older who were pregnant and tested positive for COVID-19 during that pregnancy. Among the 663 patients involved in the study, 403 received mAB treatment while 260 did not, and most patients were infected with COVID-19 during the Omicron wave.

Regardless of whether they received mAB treatment, all patients’ charts were reviewed to see if they were diagnosed with gestational hypertension, preeclampsia without severe features, severe preeclampsia/HELLP syndrome, and postpartum hypertensive disorder with no antepartum diagnosis (PPHTN).

What the Study Found

After comparing the rates of these HDPs between the two patient groups, researchers found that there was no statistically significant difference between the patients who received mAB treatment and those who did not. Below is a breakdown of the percentages for the mAB-treated and non-mAB-treated groups, respectively:

• HDP: 21.8 percent versus 17.3 percent
• Gestational hypertension: 13.2 percent versus 10.8 percent
• Non-severe preeclampsia: 2.5 percent versus 3.5 percent
• Severe preeclampsia/HELLP syndrome: 6.9 percent versus 2.3 percent
• PHTN: 2.7 percent versus 1.9 percent

While patients treated with mAB had a slightly higher incidence rate of severe preeclampsia, the rate was deemed not statistically significant. And so the researchers concluded that treatment with mAB is not associated with a change in HDP rates among patients infected with the Omicron variant. Moving forward, additional research can help identify which populations benefit the most from mAB treatment so that those resources can be allocated effectively and efficiently.