INFLUENCE OF IMMUNOTHERAPY ON ANTISPERM ANTIBODY TITER IN UNEXPLAINEDRECURRENT ABORTERS

PROBLEM: The mechanism of the beneficial effect of immunotherapy for h uman reproductive wastage remains to be elucidated. Because some women with unexplained recurrent spontaneous abortion are immunized with th eir partner's lymphocytes, it is important to determine whether such i mmunization results in elevation or enhancement of immunity to spermat ozoa, because antigenic cross-reactivity between lymphocytes and sperm atozoa has been reported. METHOD: The present study was initiated to e valuate the changes in antisperm antibody titer and lymphocyte subsets after immunotherapy as compared to before immunotherapy. Antisperm an tibody detection was performed by SpermCheck Assay, which is based on a modification of the immunobead test. Maternal lymphocyte subsets wer e analyzed in two-color flow-cytometric experiments. RESULTS: The perc entage of antibody-positive sperm decreased significantly (P = 0.0008) after immunotherapy. The percentage of B(CD19+) cells (P = 0.0003), c ytotoxic T(CD8+ and CD11b-) cells (P = 0.02) and the Th/Ts ratio (P = 0.005) decreased significantly, while suppressor T(CD8+ and CD11b+) ce lls increased significantly (P = 0.0002) after the immunotherapy. This suggests that cell-mediated immunosuppression was induced by immunoth erapy. CONCLUSION: The data of the present study suggest that antisper m antibodies have potential for use as a marker for a deficiency in ma ternal genital tract immunosupressor mechanisms and that immunotherapy could be an effective treatment for women with antisperm antibodies w ho have unexplained recurrent abortions.