University of Chicago study finds therapy to prevent miscarriage is not helpful A treatment commonly used by physicians around the world to prevent recurrent miscarriage was found to have no benefit, according to a study by led researchers at the University of Chicago, as reported in the July 31 issue of The Lancet.
"This is the largest, most comprehensive study of its kind to evaluate a costly and controversial therapy for miscarriage," said Carole Ober, Ph.D., lead author of the study and professor of human genetics and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Chicago. "Many smaller studies have reported conflicting results, but this prospective, randomized, double-blind study clearly shows no benefit."
The Recurrent Miscarriage Study found that women treated with immunotherapy -- also called paternal lymphocyte immunization, or mononuclear-cell immunization -- had more and later miscarriages than those women who received a placebo.
Immunotherapy has been used in humans for more than two decades and is a costly treatment option offered in private physicians' offices and medical centers. During therapy the mother is injected with mononuclear cells prepared from the father's blood. The therapy is based on the belief that it offers a protective immune response and helps maintain the pregnancy.
Six medical centers from the United States and Canada participated in the Recurrent Miscarriage Study, evaluating 179 women from July 1992 through December 1997. The women, who had three or more previous unexplained miscarriages, were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group.
Eighty-nine women were injected with blood cells from their male partners, and
90 women were injected with the same amount of a placebo (saline). All patients
were contacted every three months to find out if they had become pregnant. If
they did not become pregnant within six months they were re-immunized. All
pregnant women wer
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Contact: Sherri McGinnis
smcginni@mcis.bsd.uchicago.edu
773-702-6241
University of Chicago Medical Center
30-Jul-1999