Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39141123›Full record

ArticleArchives of gynecology and obstetrics2025

Maternal peripheral blood telomere length and preterm birth in African American women: a pilot study.

Weiyi Huang, Gang Han, Brandie DePaoli Taylor, Gabriel Neal, Kelli Kochan, Robin L Page

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Archives of gynecology and obstetrics, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

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Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Weiyi Huang *Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Texas A &M University, College Station, TX, USA.
Gang Han *Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Texas A &M University, College Station, TX, USA.
Brandie DePaoli TaylorDivision of Basic Science and Translational Research, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX, USA.
Gabriel NealDepartment of Primary Care and Rural Medicine, Texas A &M School of Medicine, Bryan, TX, USA.
Kelli KochanInstitute for Genome Science and Society, Texas A &M University, College Station, TX, USA.
Robin L PageSchool of Nursing, Texas A &M University, College Station, TX, USA. rpage@tamu.edu.ORCID 0000-0001-7223-412X

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

purposeThis study aimed to explore the association between preterm birth and telomere length of maternal peripheral blood in African American women.

methods78 African American women were recruited for this study between 2018 and 2023 from 2 prenatal clinics in central and east Texas. Participants provided blood samples and completed clinic questionnaires, with clinical data collected from their post-delivery medical records. Telomere length was measured using monochrome multiplex quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Linear regression and multinomial logistic regression were used to analyze the association between telomere length and gestational length. Kruskal-Wallis's test and Fisher's exact test were used to compare preterm birth, early-term birth and full-term birth by telomere length, social-demographic characteristics, stress and discrimination.

resultsThe rates of preterm birth was higher in pregnant women with shorter telomeres. After adjusting for confounders, for every 10-units increase in the relative telomere-to-single-copy gene (T/S) ratio, gestational days increased by 1.090 days (90% CI 0.182, 1.997), and for every 10-units decrease in the T/S ratio, the odds of preterm birth was 2.664 (90% CI 1.064, 6.673) times greater than the odds of full-term birth. No statistically significant associations were observed between stress, discrimination, and either preterm birth or telomere length.

conclusionsMaternal peripheral blood telomere shortening is associated with preterm birth, providing support to further explore the clinical utility of maternal telomere testing for prediction and early intervention of preterm birth and the study of biological mechanisms of spontaneous preterm birth.

Indexed as

Premature BirthTelomereAdultBlack or African AmericanFemaleGestational AgeHumansPilot ProjectsPregnancyTexasAfrican AmericanPreterm birthTelomere length

Identifiers

PMID39141123
PMCPMC12055911

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.