Clinical Trial: Imaging Innovations for Placental Assessment in Response to Environmental Pollution (PARENTs)

Study Status: Recruiting
Recruit Status: Recruiting
Study Type: Observational

Official Title: Imaging Innovations for Placental Assessment in Response to Environmental Pollution (PARENTs)

Brief Summary: How environmental pollution contributes to poor pregnancy outcome is poorly understood. The first trimester of pregnancy is a particularly vulnerable time period for the developing fetus and a mother's exposure to air pollution may alter the way that the placenta is established and how it functions throughout the rest of pregnancy. This project aims to expand and develop new MRI technologies to assess real-time placental structure and function as pregnancy develops from the first to the third trimester so that early detection, prevention strategies, and early treatment of placental dysfunction as a result of pollution exposures may be developed.

Detailed Summary:

Many epidemiological studies have associated exposure to traffic-derived air pollution from motor vehicles, air toxins from industry and other environmental toxins by pregnant women with measures of poor birth outcomes including preeclampsia (PE), preterm birth (PTB) and intra-uterine growth restriction (IUGR). Preeclampsia, preterm labor and IUGR, collectively known as ischemic placental disease, are strongly correlated with infant morbidity and a host of adult diseases ranging from coronary artery disease to cancer. Although it is widely believed that the pathophysiological mechanisms leading to complications of ischemic placental disease and placental insufficiency have similar biological origins, starting as early as defective placental implantation, to date there are no predictive studies that prospectively examine placental structure and/or function. This may be related to existing technologies, routinely employed in clinical decision-making, such as ultrasonography and certain biomarkers, lacking precision in the first trimester, and adequate sensitivity and specificity in the second to third trimesters. Thus, assessment and prediction of normalcy versus aberrancy of placental function are lacking. Therefore, the overarching objective of this proposal is to develop and evaluate a suit of cutting-edge multi-parametric magnetic resonance imaging (mp-MRI) technologies (primary predictor), and translate these novel placental imaging modalities to assessing the impact of environmental pollution exposure on prediction of the composite of placental aberrancy/insufficiency and related outcomes (PE, PTB and IUGR) (primary outcome).

Our central hypothesis is that chronic exposure to high rates of environmental pollution, independent of socio-economic status (SES), increases the risk of placental insufficiency due to early gestational development of adverse placental structur
Sponsor: University of California, Los Angeles

Current Primary Outcome: Number of Participants with Placental Insufficiency as Assessed by Novel Multi-Parametric MRI Technology [ Time Frame: Delivery ]

Original Primary Outcome: Same as current

Current Secondary Outcome:

Original Secondary Outcome:

Information By: University of California, Los Angeles

Dates:
Date Received: April 14, 2016
Date Started: October 2015
Date Completion: August 2019
Last Updated: May 25, 2016
Last Verified: May 2016