HLA typing in couples with repetitive abortion.

Abstract

Highly inbred strains of mice have a reduced reproductive capacity. In contrast, an increased capacity is associated with an immune response to placental antigens. In humans, repeated miscarriages seem to be associated to a higher frequency of HLA allele BW35. Twenty couples with repetitive spontaneous abortions of unknown etiology and 20 control couples with normal fertility were HLA typed. The sera of wives of infertile couples were tested against the husbands lymphocytes in complement dependent lympholysis test in order to detect anti-paternal HLA antibodies. The data show an HLA significant compatibility between the husbands and the wives with a history of repetitive spontaneous abortions. The best probability of evaluating different loci is that of HLA-A (p less than 0.01). The frequency of HLA-BW35 in women with repeated miscarriages is higher than in control women or than in the general Italian population. In infertile couples, all the sera collected from the wife were negative against the husband lymphocytes.