Pregnancy in Familial Chylomicronemia Syndrome: Plasmapheresis as Therapeutic Approach

Abstract

Introduction: Familial Chylomicronemia Syndrome (FCS) is a rare autosomal recessive disease where functional loss of lipoprotein lipase results in severe hypertriglyceridemia. Patients often experience recurrent acute pancreatitis, a life-threatening disease. Serum triglycerides (TGs) are physiologically elevated several folds during pregnancy, which especially endanger patients with FCS to develop hypertriglyceridemic pancreatitis (HP) and complications like miscarriage. Despite the development of new drugs for FCS, their safety in pregnancy has not yet been confirmed and their treatment represents a big challenge. Clinical Case: A 30-year women was hospitalized for planned reevaluation while 22 weeks pregnant. She was diagnosed with FCS at the age of one month with failure to thrive, jaundice and lipemic blood serum (homozygous for the LPL gene variation C.1019-2A>T). During childhood she was treated with low-fat diet with average TG levels 10–15 mmol/l (n<1,7 mmol/l). In the past five years, she was hospitalized for HP five times due to loss of compliance to diet (serum TGs > 30 mmol/l). The last episode of HP was provoked by pregnancy and resulted in miscarriage. At the admission, the patient was asymptomatic, with BMI:18,5 kg/m2, TGs: 32,2 mmol/l (n<1,7 nmol/l), lipase: 21 U/L (n<60 U/L). Gynecology status and child growth parameters were normal. Due to inability to achieve lower TG levels plasmapheresis was started two times per week. The overall mean of pre plasmapheresis values of TGs were 21,68 nmol/l (ranging from 15,9 to 26,3 nmol/l) and post plasmapheresis were 7,15 mmol/L (ranging from 4,9 to 9,9 mmol/l). Due to the frequent need for plasmapheresis and high risk pregnancy, the patient was transferred to the Gynecology department. The patient had no adverse reactions and fetal monitoring was performed before, during and after procedure with no abnormalities registered. Plasmapheresis was performed using Spectra OPTIA via peripheral veins with 5% albumin replacement, proceeded by 250-500ml of 0.9% saline infusion. At 40th gestational week Cesarean section was performed and a healthy baby boy (weight: 3540 g, lenght: 49 cm) was born with Apgar score 10/10. We followed baby boy the first five years of the childhood. So far the patient has not experienced HP and the baby boy has normal levels of TGs. Conclusion: Our case showed a succesfull pregnancy outcome in female patient with FCS achieved by multidisciplinary approach including plasmapheresis. For the first time therapeutic plasmaferesis was used in order to prevent pancreatitis and potential complications for both mother and child.