Clinical evaluation of immunotherapy in early pregnancy with x-irradiated paternal mononuclear cells for primary recurrent aborters.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the beneficial effect of immunotherapy for the treatment of recurrent abortion.

STUDY DESIGN

We immunized 106 primary recurrent aborters, twice at around 5 and 7 weeks of gestation, with intradermal injection of approximately 100 to 200 million x-irradiated (50 Gy) paternal mononuclear cells. We injected another 38 primary recurrent aborters in the same manner with only 1 million such paternal cells, to examine the relationship between the paternal cell dose used for immunization and pregnancy outcome.

RESULTS

The pregnancy success rate (83.0%) in patients immunized with a large number of cells was significantly higher than that (55.3%) in those immunized with a small number of cells (p < 0.001). Furthermore, the frequency of twins in the former group was high (5.7%, five of 88).

CONCLUSION

This positive relationship between the paternal cell dose used for immunization in early pregnancy and the pregnancy outcome reflects the efficacy of this mode of immunotherapy for recurrent aborters.