Pullaiah Akinepalli ¹, Narender Gaddam ²

^1,2Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Kakatiya Medical College, Warangal,Telangana,India

Address for correspondence: Dr. Pullaiah Akinepalli, Assistant Professor,Department of Biochemistry, Kakatiya Medical College, Warangal, Telangana, India.

Email: pullaiahakine@gmail.com

Introduction: Copper is an essential micronutrient and has an important role in foetal development. Disorders of Copper and Ceruloplasmin levels has been associated with pathological pregnancies.The determination of Copper:Ceruloplasmin ratio has been proposed as one of the better indicator of Copper status in pregnancy.

Objective: The present study was undertaken to assess the Copper status in healthy pregnant women of in and around warangal comparing with the age matched non-pregnant women without history of usage of oral contraceptives.

Materials and Methods The venous samples from twenty healthy pregnant women aged 20-40yrs in the third trimester as study group and from twenty healthy non-pregnant women as control group was taken to compare the levels of Serum Copper, Ceruloplasmin and Copper:Ceruloplasmin ratio between groups. Estimation of serum copper was done by End point colorimetric method, Ceruloplasmin by Immunoturbidometric assay on Auto analyzer and Copper:Ceruloplasmin ratio is calculated by formula.

Results : A statistically significant increase(p<0.05) in serum copper levels of pregnant women (41.64µmol/L ± 6.62) was noticed when compared with non-pregnant women (21.46 µmol/L ± 3.59). Serum ceruloplasmin levels of pregnant women (0.43 gm/L ± 0.07) was statistically significant increase compared with controls (0.21 gm/L ± 0.02) (p<0.05) and a decrease in Copper:Ceruloplasmin ratio of pregnant women (12.87 µmol/gm ± 1.51) when compared to control group (13.22 µmol/gm ± 1.6) was observed, not statistically significant.

Conclusion : Serum levels of Copper and Ceruloplasmin were significantly increased in pregnant women and Copper:Ceruloplasmin ratio decreased but not significant statistically.

Keywords : Copper, Ceruloplasmin, Copper:Ceruloplasmin ratio, Pregnancy