2015 Compendium for HELLP Syndrome: From Bench to Bedside

Practitioners of obstetrics, maternal-fetal medicine and consultants in other branches of medicine who help provide excellent care to pregnant patients with hypertensive complications of pregnancy will welcome this compendium about HELLP Syndrome. Drawing upon the expertise of 37 contributors from 15 institutions and four countries, this book summarises the state of the science and practice for patients with HELLP syndrome. On a global basis, what we call HELLP syndrome accounts for hundreds to thousands of maternal deaths and is responsible for many more thousands of patients that suffer near miss mortality, which we more properly term severe maternal morbidity. Our understanding of this pregnancy scourge -- the basic science or bench aspects -- is still relatively inadequate to fully comprehend the pathogenesis and the pathophysiology of this condition as it relates to its close relative, the syndromic disorder of preeclampsia. Although a corticosteroid-based management scheme has shown great promise in practice and has a strong physiologic basis, there remains a need for a high quality, large-scale (1000+ patients) constructed, prospective placebo-controlled clinical trial involving a heterogeneous patient population to fully and objectively evaluate this approach to practice. The need and the urgency are great given the risk of HELLP to mothers and babies.