ArticleFrontiers in endocrinology2026
Integrated untargeted and targeted metabolomics identifies and validates urinary bile acid biomarkers for the diagnosis of intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy.
Article in Frontiers in endocrinology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) is the most common pregnancy-specific liver disorder and is characterized by unexplained pruritus and elevated serum bile acid levels, typically in the third trimester. Excessive bile acid accumulation is associated with maternal discomfort and adverse fetal outcomes, underscoring the need for timely and accurate diagnosis. Methods: We enrolled 76 pregnant women. In the discovery cohort, untargeted metabolomics was performed on paired serum and urine samples from 8 patients with ICP and 8 healthy controls to identify co-differentially expressed metabolites (co-DEMs). In the validation cohort, targeted metabolomics was used to quantify urinary bile acid co-DEMs in 30 patients with ICP and 30 controls. Results: Untargeted metabolomics identified 76 and 64 differentially expressed metabolites (DEMs) in serum and urine, respectively. Seven co-DEMs were detected in both sample types, five of which were bile acid species. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis highlighted primary bile acid biosynthesis as a key pathway associated with ICP. Targeted metabolomics showed marked increases in urinary glycocholic acid (GCA) and taurocholic acid (TCA), both of which remained significant after false discovery rate (FDR) correction, whereas cholic acid (CA) showed a more modest difference in the candidate-focused analysis. Urinary concentrations of these metabolites were positively correlated with serum total bile acid levels. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed strong diagnostic performance for GCA (AUC = 0.95) and TCA (AUC = 0.86), whereas CA showed modest performance (AUC = 0.65). Conclusion: Primary bile acid biosynthesis is closely associated with ICP. Urinary GCA and TCA may serve as promising non-invasive biomarkers for the diagnosis of ICP. These findings require confirmation in larger, independent multicenter cohorts before clinical implementation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.