A significant number of patients are recategorized according to the GOLD 2017 criteria. This change only marginally affects the profile of comorbidities; still this needs to be considered when assessing the patients in daily practice.

The study showed nearly 30% reduction in preterm births of pregnant women with vitamin E treatment.

Abstract:Objective: In Hungary, vitamin E is frequently used to prevent repeated or threatened abortion. A previous study showed a higher risk of cardiovascular malformations in the children of pregnant women who had a high vitamin E intake either in their diet or by taking supplements. The objective was to examine this association. Methods: The Hungarian CaseControl Surveillance System of Congenital Abnormalities, 19801996, is a large, population-based dataset including 22,843 cases with congenital abnormalities, 38,151 healthy controls matched to the cases, and 834 patient controls with Down syndrome. Vitamin E treatment was compared in the mothers of these children. Results: The mothers of 1418 cases with congenital abnormalities (6.2%), 2267 controls (6.0%) and 43 patient controls (5.2%) had vitamin E treatment during pregnancy. A preliminary comparison of cases and controls showed a higher risk for four congenital abnormality groups, including cardiovascular malformations. However, if only prospectively and medically recorded vitamin E treatments in the prenatal maternity logbook were evaluated during the critical period of different congenital abnormalities, the higher risk for these congenital abnormalities was not found. Conclusions:The results of this study were based on relatively high-dose vitamin E intake in pregnant women and were not able to confirm the previously reported teratogenic effect of vitamin E.

Abstract:Objectives. To study the efficacy of vitamin E supplementation for the reduction of preterm birth/low birthweight newborns in pre-eclamptic pregnant women. Design. Comparison of the rate of preterm birth and low birthweight in pre-eclamptic pregnant women with or without vitamin E treatment. Setting. Hungarian Case-Control Surveillance System of Congenital Abnormalities, 1980Abnormalities, -1996. Population. Newborn infants in Hungarian population. Methods. Medically recorded pre-eclampsia and birth outcomes of pregnant women were evaluated. Main outcome measures. Preterm birth, low birthweight. Results. There was no lower incidence of pre-eclampsia after vitamin E treatment. Pregnant women with pre-eclampsia and without vitamin E treatment had a higher rate of preterm births (10.4% vs. 9.3%) and low birthweight newborns (7.8% vs. 5.6%) than the reference sample of 34,928 pregnant women without pre-eclampsia and without vitamin E treatment. The newborns of 936 pregnant women with pre-eclampsia and without vitamin E treatment had higher rate of preterm birth (10.4% vs. 8.6%; OR with 95% CI: 0.8, 0.7-0.9) than 81 pregnant women with pre-eclampsia but with vitamin E treatment. However, the rate of low birthweight newborns was somewhat but not significantly higher (8.6% vs. 7.8%; OR with 95 CI: 1.1, 0.8-1.4) in pregnant women with pre-eclampsia and with vitamin E treatment. There was very high rate of threatened abortion (45.7% vs. 15.3%) and threatened preterm delivery (27.2% vs. 13.5%) in 81 preeclamptic pregnant women with vitamin E treatment compared to the reference group. Conclusions. Vitamin E treatment reduced the rate of preterm birth in pregnant women with pre-eclampsia but not the rate of low birthweight newborns.