Keding and Stanic Lab publish study in Placenta

Logan Keding, PhD, postdoctoral researcher in the Stanic Lab led by Aleksandar Stanic-Kostic, MD, PhD, is lead author on a new article in Placenta that examines the relationship between placental blood flow, perfusion, and histopathology. Co–authors include Ruo-Yu Liu, Taylor  Keding, Jessica Vazquez, Crystal Bockoven, Dinesh Shah, Thaddeus Golos, Oliver Wieben, and Aleksandar Stanic.

In “Bridging cotyledon histopathology and perfusion in healthy primate pregnancy,” Keding, Stanic-Kostic, and co-authors combined longitudinal MRI measurements of maternal placental blood flow and perfusion with quantitative digital histopathology of 80 individual cotyledons from rhesus macaque pregnancies. The study identified relationships between local placental perfusion and histopathologic features, including associations between stromal mineralization and chronically reduced perfusion and between maternal vascular malperfusion-associated lesions and altered maternal blood delivery. The findings show that placental lesions occur along a continuum of normal placental physiology and adaptation rather than in distinct “normal” versus “disease” categories.

“We challenge the view of placental lesions as binary indicators of disease; through pixel-level annotation paired with longitudinal perfusion data we demonstrate that the boundary between healthy placental maturation and early insufficiency is graded and resolvable at the cotyledon level.”

Read the whole study here! 

**by Ob-Gyn Communications Intern Tina Lee