SYMPOSIUM IV: PRETERM BIRTH AND IMMUNOLOGYChairs: Marijke Faas | Thierry Fournier16:00 18:3016:00-16:20Association of biomarkers of the fetal immune system with birth weight and preterm delivery

Pregnancy is a crucial period of life for women, families, and society. Therefore, prenatal care is an important structural piece of the health care system in most countries with the overarching goal to prevent health problems in both infant and mother. By continuous risk assessment, including laboratory testing of various biomarkers, prenatal care providers strive to early detect factors that may heighten the perinatal risk of mother and child and intervene to improve pregnancy outcome. Because new sophisticated technologies have been implemented continuously over the past decades, the focus of screening examinations in general has shifted towards earlier risk prediction. The complications addressed by these risk predictions range from fetal anomalies over preeclampia, gestational diabetes, preterm birth and others. Besides improving our understanding of biological mechanisms in utero this has set off a new dynamic towards the potential to improve pregnancy outcome. New and promising biomarkers include a wide category of medical signs from ultrasound to plasma markers that can be measured objectively, accurately, and reproducibly. The key issue remains to determine the relationship between any given measurable biomarker and relevant clinical endpoints, which should be the primary endpoint of clinical research after all. While preterm delivery and fetal weight are the most commonly used outcome markers of adverse pregnancy outcome there is a wider range of pathological conditions in pregnancy for which the appropriate use of biomarkers might allow earlier recognition and a better understanding of pathophysiology in the future. Ultimately the goal of our research will be to better predict and prevent multiple pregnancy complications. While at this time many influencing factors during pregnancy remain insufficiently elucidated increasing knowledge is pointing towards immune mediation at the interface of multiple pathways modulating adverse outcome of pregnancy. We will elaborate on the current understanding and potential of biomarkers predicting pregnancy outcome based on our results and those of other groups from human pregnancy cohorts. Adequate prenatal care that includes novel techniques and biomarkers holds the potential for a significant payoff in terms of newborn health stock.