The following is a summary of “Small fetal thymus and adverse perinatal outcome in maternal vasculitis: A prospective case-control study,” published in the November 2023  issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology by Oluklu, et al.

Ultrasonography of the fetal thymus size may be able to tell pregnant women with vasculitis that the pregnancy will not go well. For a study, researchers sought to find out if the size of the fetal thymus can predict a bad result for the baby in pregnant women with vasculitis compared to healthy pregnant women. The case group was made up of 22 pregnant women who had been identified with vasculitis before. Of these, 18 had Behcet’s disease, 3 had Takayasu arteritis, and 1 had Wegener’s granulomatosis. 

The 66 healthy pregnant women in the control group were the same gestational age as the women in the case group. The thymic thoracic ratio (TTR) was found to find out how big the fetal thymus was when three blood vessels and the trachea were seen. The fetal TTR was much lower in the case group (0.32 ± 0.03 vs. 0.36 ± 0.02, P = < 0.001). Foetal TTR was much lower in the case group of people who took prednisone compared to those who did not (P =.001). It wasn’t different in the case group whether colchicine was used or not (P =.078) when it came to fetal TTR. 

It was also found that the TTR had a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 92%, with a cut-off value of 0.33 for identifying bad results during pregnancy. The TTR was smaller in babies whose mothers had vasculitis while they were pregnant. The small fetal thymus may let doctors know about possible bad outcomes during pregnancy. When combined with other risk factors, it may also help predict bad outcomes during pregnancy in women who have vasculitis.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2468784723001137