Mehri Ghafourian; Najmeh Karami; Ali Khodadadi; Roshan Nikbakhat
Volume 11, Issue 2 , June 2014, , Pages 84-96
Abstract
Background: Recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) and in vitro fertilization (IVF) failure with unknown causes are the controversial issues that are probably related to the immune system. Objective: To compare circulating NK cells expressing activation and inhibition surface markers between patients with ...
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Background: Recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) and in vitro fertilization (IVF) failure with unknown causes are the controversial issues that are probably related to the immune system. Objective: To compare circulating NK cells expressing activation and inhibition surface markers between patients with RSA and IVF failure with those of healthy multiparous and successful IVF control women, respectively. Methods: In this case-control study peripheral blood samples were collected from 43 patients who included 23 women with RSA and 20 with IVF failure, plus 43 healthy control women comprising of 36 normal multiparous women and seven women with successful IVF. The expression of CD69, CD94 and CD161 surface markers on CD56+NK cells were assessed using specific monoclonal antibodies by flowcytometry. Results: The percentage of NK cells increased significantly in patients with RSA and in women with IVF failure in comparison to healthy multiparous and successful IVF control groups (p<0.001). The overall expression of CD69, CD94, CD161 were also increased significantly on NK cells in both patient groups compared to control groups (p<0.001). Conclusion: Elevated expression of CD69 and CD161 on NK cells can be considered as immunological risk markers in RSA and IVF failure. However, it is not clear if high expression of CD94 on peripheral blood NK cells is related to abnormal activity of endometrial NK cells.
Behrouz Gharesi-Fard; Jaleh Zolghadri; Leila Foroughinia; Fahimeh Tavazoo; Alamtaj Samsami Dehaghani
Volume 4, Issue 3 , December 2007, , Pages 173-178
Abstract
Background: Recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) is defined as three or more se-quential abortions before the twentieth week of gestation. There are evidences to sup-port an allo-immunologic mechanism for RSA. One of the methods for treatment of RSA is leukocyte therapy; however there is still controversy ...
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Background: Recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) is defined as three or more se-quential abortions before the twentieth week of gestation. There are evidences to sup-port an allo-immunologic mechanism for RSA. One of the methods for treatment of RSA is leukocyte therapy; however there is still controversy about effectiveness of this method. Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of leukocyte therapy for treatment of RSA. Methods: Ninety two non-pregnant women with at least three sequential abor-tions (60 primary & 32 secondary aborters) recognized as RSA were referred to our Laboratory for immunotherapy. All the cases were immunized by isolated lymphocytes from their husbands. Fifty to 100 million washed and resuspended mononuclear cells were injected by I.V., S.C., and I.D. route. The result of each injection was checked by WBC cross matching between couples after four weeks of injections. Immunization was repeated in fifth week to a maximum of 3 times if needed. Eighty one age-matched non-pregnant RSA women (52 primary and 29 secondary aborters) with at least three se-quential abortions were also included in this study as controls. The control group was not immunized. Results: 67 out of 92 (72.8%) immunized cases and 44 out of 81 con-trols (54.3%) showed a successful outcome of pregnancy (p<0.02). Comparison of pri-mary and secondary aborters indicated a significantly better outcome only in primary (75% vs. 42.3%. p<0.001) but not in secondary aborters (68.8% vs. 75.9%, p = 0.7). Conclusion: The present investigation showed the effectiveness of leukocyte therapy in primary but not in secondary RSA patients. Despite the current controversy and limita-tion of leukocyte therapy in RSA, the results of our investigation provide evidence sup-porting the use of allo-immunization in improving the outcome of pregnancy in primary RSA patients.