Histopathological study of placental changes associated with pre-eclampsia and eclampsia in a tertiary care centre of Puducherry

Introduction: Foetal development mainly depends on normal placental development. Mother, Placenta and Foetus are related to each other during the course of the pregnancy. Pregnancy induced hypertension shows considerable changes in the histopathology of placenta. Therefore the main aim of the present study is to evaluate the morphological changes of placenta in case of Pregnancy Induced Hypertension (PIH) and to correlate the findings with severity of toxaemia of pregnancy. Materials and Methods: The present study includes 61cases of placenta out of which 51 are in the study group and 10 cases are in the control group. Our study was descriptive study conducted in the Department of Pathology, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute, Sri Balaji Vidhyapeeth University, Puducherry during the period of July 2015-June 2018. The study group were further divided into four categories. All the placenta are grossed according to the institute protocol and the slides were examined for various morphological changes and correlated with the severity of pre-eclampsia and eclampsia. Descriptive statistics were used to evaluate the results. Results: The most prominent lesion seen in the toxaemia of pregnancy were villous cytotrophoblastic proliferation and villous fibrinoid necrosis which accounts to 78% and 75% respectively. Villous stromal fibrosis constitutes 71% of the study group cases. Increased villous vascularity was seen in 39% of the placenta of toxaemia of pregnancy. 69% of the cases shows villous basement membrane thickening in the study group placenta. Conclusion: Our study helps in evaluating the various morphological changes in placenta in the hypertensive disorder of pregnancy. This study helps in anticipating the occurrence of changes in the subsequent pregnancy induced hypertension cases.