RARE DISEASERESEARCH ATLAS
Open navigation menu

ORPHA:244242

HELLP syndrome

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, low platelets in pregnancy · Hemolysis-elevated liver enzymes-low platelets syndrome

Publications

11,774

Trials

13

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,144

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

3/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare hemorrhagic disorder due to an acquired platelet anomaly characterized by hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes and thrombocytopenia that affects pregnant or post-partum women, and is frequently associated with severe preeclampsia. Symptoms are variable, typically including right upper quadrant or epigastric abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, excessive weight gain, generalized edema, hypertension, general malaise, right shoulder pain, backache, and/or headache. Hepatic hemorrhage and rupture, renal failure, and pulmonary edema can result in maternal and/or fetal death.

How rare: How common this is has not been clearly measured.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (3)

hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, low platelets in pregnancy · hemolysis-elevated liver enzymes-low platelet count syndrome · hemolysis-elevated liver enzymes-low platelets syndrome

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

3/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    11,774 matched papers (7,309 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    29 HPO annotations (e.g. Proteinuria; Nausea; Back pain) Source

  4. Animal modelNot found

    No Alliance genotype “model of” associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  5. Orphan designationNot found

    No FDA or EMA orphan-drug designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name Source

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    13 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (2 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

29

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0008585

  • Proteinuria
  • Nausea
  • Back pain
  • Disseminated intravascular coagulation
  • Placental abruption

Showing 5 of 29 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

None returned for this Mondo ID. Empty here is not proof that no model organism work exists under another name or gene.

Monarch fetch 2026-07-29

Therapies

Designations, candidates, and chemicals

FDA OOPD and EMA orphan designations, Open Targets clinical candidates, and CTD chemical associations via MyDisease.info. These never change the interventional-trial headline.

Orphan designation (FDA · EMA)

No designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name on the FDA OOPD mirror or EMA orphan register. Absence here is not proof that none exists under another wording.

Open Targets candidates

3

Drugs / clinical candidates · MONDO_0008585

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

No CTD chemical associations returned for this Mondo ID.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

11,774

11,774 papers — among the better-studied rare conditions, though still a fraction of common-disease literature (breast cancer: over 700,000). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

11,774 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 59 (publications denominator n=3967).

7,309 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 9,974 · MeSH hits: 319

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,144

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Karaaslan O4 papers · 2026

    Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine, Van Yüzüncü Yıl University, 65080 Van, Turkey.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Karaman E4 papers · 2026

    Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine, Van Yüzüncü Yıl University, 65080 Van, Turkey.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Li X4 papers · 2026

    Department of Anaesthesiology, West China Second Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Onat E4 papers · 2026

    Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine, Van Yüzüncü Yıl University, 65080 Van, Turkey.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Wilson ML4 papers · 2026

    Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Ateş Ç3 papers · 2026

    Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine, Van Yüzüncü Yıl University, 65080 Van, Turkey.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Doğan A3 papers · 2026

    Department of Haematology, Faculty of Medicine, Van Yüzüncü Yıl University, 65080 Van, Turkey.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Gjessing HK3 papers · 2026

    Centre for Fertility and Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, 0379 Oslo, Norway.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Hacıoğlu L3 papers · 2026

    Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine, Van Yüzüncü Yıl University, 65080 Van, Turkey.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Joseph KS3 papers · 2026

    Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

13

interventional trials for this specific condition

13 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 2 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 11 September 2026

13 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 93.5th percentile).

low confidence · 93.5th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

13 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Observational and natural-history studies

18 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Other registries (secondary)

Broader net from EU CTIS, ISRCTN, and ICTRP when available — deduped against ClinicalTrials.gov IDs already counted above. Dual-model LLM relevance gates what we keep. These rows are not added to the interventional headline.

raw 49 · after dedupe 48 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 48 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-30

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

No secondary-registry studies passed dual-model relevance for this condition name (after dedupe).

Uncertain / not reviewed (48)

Where to find support

Condition-specific patient organisations, when Orphanet lists them, are on the disease’s Orphanet page. We also link umbrella groups that support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families.

Orphanet entry for HELLP syndrome — check Associations / patient organisations on that page.

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

("HELLP syndrome" OR "Hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, low platelets in pregnancy" OR "Hemolysis-elevated liver enzymes-low platelets syndrome" OR "hemolysis-elevated liver enzymes-low platelet count syndrome") OR (MESH:"HELLP Syndrome") OR ("HELLP" OR "HELLP-related")

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: HELLP Syndrome

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"HELLP syndrome" OR "Hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, low platelets in pregnancy" OR "Hemolysis-elevated liver enzymes-low platelets syndrome" OR "hemolysis-elevated liver enzymes-low platelet count syndrome"

Interventional trials matched via: both (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 13 interventional · 18 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase, mesh; with hits: phrase, mesh

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is short or not clearly distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (11774) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T10:28:54.380Z