Étude des concentrations sériques en vitamines B9 et B12 dans une population de femmes ayant porté un fœtus atteint de malformation du tube neural

Reduction of vitamin intake, especially of vitamin B9 and B12 which take part in remethylation of homocysteine, leads to hyperhomocysteinemia, known to be a risk factor for neural tube defects. We measured the levels of vitamin B9 and B12 in serums from thirty women who had a pregnancy complicated by neural tube defects and from sixty women who had a normal offspring. Serums were those used for the determination of fetal Down's syndrome. Vitamin levels were determined by using a reaction of immunocompetition with chemiluminescent detection. There is as many women with vitamin deficiencies in the control group as in the pathologic group. Moreover, comparison of the mean values of each vitamin in the two populations, using Student's t test, does not show lower vitamin levels in the pathologic group than in the control group. In conclusion, vitamin status alone can't explain the occurrence of neural tube defects.