Variation of urinary kallikrein excretion during pregnancy and the effects of hypertension.
In normal pregnant women the excretion of urinary kallikrein diminishes between the second and the third trimester and such reduction is maintained during the first ten days of puerperium. A comparison between normal women and those suffering from hypertension during the first, second and third trimester of pregnancy shows that, except for the first trimester, there exists a significant net reduction of enzyme excretion in the hypertensive cases. Dividing the patients according to the type of hypertension, it reveals that this phenomenon is unaltered for subjects having essential hypertension, while those affected by secondary hypertension or gestosis do not show any statistically significant variation in enzyme excretion from normal subjects.