Antinuclear Antibodies predict a higher number of Pregnancy Loss in Unexplained Recurrent Pregnancy Loss.
OBJECTIVE
The etiology of recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) is unknown in a significant proportion of patients. Autoimmune processes have been implicated in the pathogenesis. The role of antinuclear antibody (ANA) in this context is largely undetermined. In an attempt to address the lack of evidence in this area, we explored the clinical significance of antinuclear antibody (ANA) in unexplained RPL.


MATERIALS AND METHODS
We studied 68 patients with RPL and 60 healthy controls from September 2005 to May 2012. All subjects were tested for ANA by immunofluorescence testing, and a titer of 1: 80 and above was considered positive. We compared the pregnancy outcome between the ANA positive and ANA negative RPL cases.


RESULTS
The incidence of ANA positivity among the cases (35.3%) was significantly higher than the controls (13.3%) (p=0.005). ANA positive cases showed significantly higher number of RPL (p=0.006) and lower number of successful pregnancies (p=0.013) compared to the ANA negative cases . The ANA titre had a significant association with the number of RPL (p<0.05, r=0.724) but not with the number of successful pregnancies (p=0.054).


CONCLUSIONS
ANA positivity predicts a less favorable pregnancy outcome in RPL. Our findings suggest that the ANA titre is a useful positive predictor of the number of RPL. Hence, ANA test is a potential prognostic tool for this condition which merits further research.
['Sakthiswary|R|R|', 'Rajalingam|S|S|', 'Norazman|M R|MR|', 'Hussein|H|H|']
D000026:Abortion, Habitual D000974:Antibodies, Antinuclear D016022:Case-Control Studies D005260:Female D006801:Humans D011247:Pregnancy D011379:Prognosis
Antinuclear antibodies Recurrent pregnancy loss