Impact of Intrauterine Growth Restriction Diseases on The Umbilical Cord Blood CD34+ Cell Counts

Introduction: Different diseases in obstetrics and gynecology can affect the number of CD34+ cells in the umbilical cord blood. Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the effect of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM), Gestational Hypertension (GHT) and Morbidly Adherent Placenta (MAP) on the content of CD34+ cells of umbilical cord blood and to compare the effectiveness of Sysmex XN20 analyzer to the flow cytometry method, which is the gold standard in CD34+ cells. Materials abd Methods: The umbilical cord blood (15 ml) was collected after the birth of the newborns. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were isolated by Ficoll-Paque Plus. The cells were stained with Procount ™ Progenitor Cell Count Kit with PE Labeled monoclonal anti-CD34+ antibody then analyzed with Flow Cytometry or Sysmex XN20 without staining, to identify CD34+ cells named as hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPC), respectively. Results: Flow cytometric evaluation revealed a significantly elevated (p<0.05) number of cord blood CD34+ cells in GDM and GHT groups compared with healthy controls. MAP patients had comparable CD34+ cells compared with healthy controls. A significant increase in lymphocyte counts was also observed in GDM and GHT groups compared with healthy controls. Sysmex analysis however only revealed an increase in lymphocyte numbers in GHT but picked no differences across groups in HPC. Correlation between Sysmex and flow cytometry results was weak in control, GHT, GDM and MAP groups r: 0570/p<0.01, r: 0.5727/p: 0.0708, r:0.2149/p: 0.4779, r: 0.111/p: 0.779, respectively. Conclusions: CD34+ cells were significantly higher in the GHT and GDM groups compared with healthy control cord blood. The correlations between Flow cytometry and Sysmex were not strong.