A study of the detection of sperm antibody in cervical mucus with a modified immunobead method.

OBJECTIVE

To develop a new immunobead binding test (IBT) procedure that will detect sperm antibody in cervical mucus (CM), especially in very small samples of mucus.

DESIGN

After the interaction of donor sperm with bromelin-dissolved CM, the motile sperm cells were separated from other cells and debris and then tested with a standard immunobead method.

SETTING

The CM and serum samples were obtained from a sequence of referred patients who were sent to this testing laboratory.

PATIENTS

There were 60 women who provided 64 samples of CM and 41 samples of blood serum. They were partners in infertile couples.

INTERVENTIONS

None.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE

A useful distinction was made between positive and negative results for the mucus samples by this CM-IBT procedure. The usable samples of mucus could be as little as 0.05 g (wet weight).

RESULTS

From the 60 women, seven mucus samples were positive; in the repeated testing, the same results were obtained with five of the six positive samples and seven of seven negative samples.

CONCLUSION

This method (CM-IBT) can be clinically useful for detecting sperm antibody in CM, especially because it is effective for tiny samples. In this method, the motile sperm cells are better separated from the debris after the incubation step. When the IBT was applied to the serum samples from the same women, there was no correlation between serum-IBT and CM-IBT, showing that both materials must be tested.