Shannon Gillespie, PhD, RN, FAAN (middle) and Ana Wong, RN (right) consult with a clinical trial participant. Gillespie and her team at The Ohio State University College of Nursing developed a blood test to accurately predict preterm birth through immune monitoring. Credit: Courtesy of MediaSource
Ohio State researchers have developed a blood test that can predict the risk of spontaneous preterm birth with unprecedented accuracy.
Nurse scientist Shannon Gillespie, who also works as a clinical and translational immunobiologist in Ohio State’s College of Nursing, said she led a research team in collaboration with the Wexner Medical Center to create the test.
The assessment — which detects risk factors for preterm birth by drawing teaspoons of blood from patients and examining changes in their immune cells, according to Ohio State News — can help enable parents and healthcare providers to take proactive steps toward complication-free pregnancies and deliveries.
Spontaneous preterm birth “refers to unintentional, unplanned delivery before the 37th week of pregnancy.” Often, the specific cause of this complication is unknown, according to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Preterm birth complications are the global leading cause(s) of death for children under 5 years old, according to the World Health Organization.
Using her undergraduate background in psychology and personal passion for prenatal care, Gillespie said she has dedicated years of research to the test’s development. This goal dates all the way back to her doctoral dissertation.
“There’s all this uncertainty about [spontaneous preterm birth] that we know will happen about 11% of the time, but there’s no way to know who it’s going to happen to,” Gillespie said. “So, I just started learning more about it, and that’s what kind of prompted me to go back to school, and I got my Ph.D.”
Gillespie said the blood test aims to reduce preterm birth complications by providing early and accurate predictions.
“The test that Dr. Shannon Gillespie designed is 97.5% accurate when performed before 20 weeks of pregnancy, based on the data we have collected [thus] far,” Ana Wong, a clinical research nurse at Ohio State, said in an email. “To our knowledge, currently, there is no other test available with this accuracy.”
Wong said the blood test analyzes how various risk factors for spontaneous preterm birth affect the immune system’s response under specific conditions. This focus on the immune system has been intellectually stimulating for Gillespie, she said.
“We can actually see changes in the immune system, which is the piece that I got really interested in, because it is a lesser discussed mechanism of labor,” Gillespie said.
Wong said 257 subjects worked with the team to produce data for early testing. In the next trial, she said they plan to test about 500 individuals.
In addition, Gillespie said the test might help to uncover different causes of spontaneous preterm births, namely patients’ immune system differences.
“It seems like the immune system might play a role in a very large number of these spontaneous preterm births, which would be good because we can do something about it,” Gillespie said. “We understand the immune system decently well in terms of trying to send it in whatever direction we think is better for your health.”
Wong said notable risk factors for spontaneous birth can include race, socioeconomic status, a history of urinary tract infections, a history of substance use and shorter intervals between pregnancies.
“These risk factors can change our immune system,” Wong said. “Simply put, the test is looking at how the immune system is working.”
Gillespie said after a successful first test, the research team is now looking to conduct a more comprehensive trial and begin conceptualizing the test’s eventual commercialization. At present, the test has already been fully patented.
“We’ll be doing that over the next three-to-four years, and then we’ll probably also be simultaneously launching the commercialization side so that when we have all of this really good information, we’ll be ready to start getting out there,” Gillespie said.
Gillespie said she believes she and her team will be able to make the test available to the public within the next five years, while still ensuring they “feel good about [it] for patients.”
