Donald J. Dudley, M.D., is principal investigator of the Bexar County arm of the Stillbirth Collaborative Research Network.
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Contact: Will Sansom, (210) 567-2579

SAN ANTONIO (March 27, 2008) — In the midst of their heartbreak, more than 100 courageous women in Bexar County who have coped with the fetal death of their babies have agreed to participate in the Stillbirth Collaborative Research Network (SCRN), the most comprehensive study ever undertaken of the devastating problem’s scope and causes.

The study, launched in May 2006 by The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District, will enroll women at many San Antonio hospitals through the end of the summer, said principal investigator Donald J. Dudley, M.D., professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the UT Health Science Center.

UT Health Science Center is top-recruiting institution
“We hope to be done by the end of August if all goes well,” Dr. Dudley said. “We have had tremendous support from community hospitals and patients. We are the top recruiter among the five network sites, which is sad because we appear to have more stillbirth than anyone else.”

Study to examine multiple factors related to stillborn births
The SCRN has been the “most complex study any of us have ever done,” Dr. Dudley said, because it considers genetics, the environment and every factor that could affect stillbirth risk. “We have the best people in multiple fields working on it and we anticipate this study will be the gold standard report about stillbirth, both its epidemiology and its associated conditions,” he said.

Experts still don’t understand the causes of stillbirth, but the study has identified associated risk factors. These include high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and smoking.

Control group is essential
The SCRN enrolled a control population of delivering mothers who received the same care as the women who suffered stillbirth. This comparison will ensure a scientific analysis of risk factors.

A study of stillbirth in defined geographical areas has never been done. “The goal is to provide insight on ways to prevent stillbirth, which is really what we are after,” Dr. Dudley said.

Eleven San Antonio hospitals involved in the study
Stillbirth is defined in the study as fetal death in the uterus during or after the 20th week of pregnancy. The 100 women in the San Antonio portion of the study were enrolled with the cooperation of 11 hospitals throughout the city. Almost 500 women in Bexar County have participated as healthy controls.

Other participating institutions
Nationally, more than 500 women who suffered stillbirth have been enrolled. The other SCRN sites are The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, the University of Utah, Emory University and Brown University. Nationally, more than 1,500 women in the U.S. have served as healthy controls.

“Our success in recruiting in Bexar County has been because of the active participation and support of our community hospitals, obstetric nurses and physicians, and, most importantly, women who have suffered stillbirth and women who are willing to help their sisters by participating as controls,” Dr. Dudley said.

Study expected to prompt many follow-up trials
After enrollment concludes, analysis of the large amounts of study data will take several months. Study results could be published in about a year and are expected to be the basis for many scientific follow-up studies of the problem in years to come.

The study is sponsored by a five-year, $3.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

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The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is the leading research institution in South Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $576 million and 5,000 faculty and staff, the UT Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $15.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $35 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to seven campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than 23,000 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and allied health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, allied health, dentistry and many other fields. For more information, visit www.uthscsa.edu.