Abstract: Objective Ectopic pregnancy and abortion are the most common abnormal gestation in early pregnancy, they seriously affecting the physical and mental health of women, and both of their morbidities are rising year by year. Although the widely used ultrasound and detection of human chorionic gonadotrophin can diagnose most cases of early abnormal pregnancy, there are still some that couldn't be diagnosed correctly through above the mentioned methods. This study was designed to provide new method for early diagnosis of normal and ectopic pregnancy and abortion through detection of the levels of progesterone and pregnancy-associated plasma protein A(PAPP-A).Methods One hundred and twenty-six patients with early pregnancy who visit clinic or need further treatment in hospital from January 2006 were enrolled. Prior to treatment, the levels of serum progesterone and PAPP-A were measured by ELISA. One-way analysis of variance in SPSS 11.5 was used in statistics; P value<0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results The mean levels of P and PAPP-A in normal pregnancy, missed abortion and ectopic pregnancy all showed a tendency to decrease. The blood progesterone and PAPP-A levels showed statistically significant difference(P<0.05) between normal and abnormal(missed abortion and ectopic pregnancy) pregnancies, but no difference between missed abortion and ectopic pregnancy.Conclusion P and PAPP-A can be considered as early diagnostic methods of abnormal pregnancy. Missed abortion and ectopia pregnancy can't be distinguished by these manoeuvres, and final diagnosis need to be combine with other auxiliary examinations.

Key words: progesterone, pregnancy-associated plasma protein A(PAPP-A), normal pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy, missed abortion