title: Factor V Leiden and the risk of stillbirth in a German population.
abstract: An association between the factor V Leiden variant and an increased risk of pregnancy loss has been reported. Most previous studies were performed with clinically recruited patients and controls. This approach may cause selection bias. The present analysis was performed with the aim to investigate the association between the factor V Leiden mutation and the risk of stillbirth in a population-based sample. The Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP) is a survey that was carried out in North East Germany. A random sample from the population aged 20 to 79 years was taken. The total SHIP population comprised 4,310 participants. The presence of the factor V Leiden variant was determined by PCR and Mnl I digestion. The presence of the factor V Leiden variant was neither associated with the number of pregnancies nor with the number of children per women. Data from 1,768 females who had at least one pregnancy with known outcome was available for the present analysis. Seventy-three women (4.1%) reported at least one stillbirth. Women with and without the factor V Leiden mutation did not differ with respect to the number of women with at least one stillbirth (OR for factor V Leiden variant 1.57; 95%-CI 0.76 - 3.25). Furthermore, the number of women with two or more stillbirths, the number of stillbirths per affected woman and the number of stillbirths per number of pregnancies per woman was similar between both genotype groups. In conclusion, there is no association between the factor V Leiden mutation and the risk of stillbirth in a representative population sample.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, Ernst Moritz Arndt University, Walther Rathenau Str. 48, D-17487 Greifswald, Germany. voelzke@uni-greifswald.de
authors.forename: Henry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Völzke
authors.forename: Rita
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Grimm
authors.forename: Daniel M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.forename: Constanze
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kohlmann
authors.forename: Gudrun
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schuster
authors.forename: Dietrich
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Alte
authors.forename: Falko H
authors.initials: FH
authors.lastname: Herrmann
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: John
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003625:Data Collection; D005165:Factor V / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011247:Pregnancy; D011256:Pregnancy Outcome / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics*; D012307:Risk Factors
chemical_list: C095381:factor V Leiden; D005165:Factor V