ANTISTEROID IMMUNE-COMPLEXES AND VASCULAR THROMBOSIS DURING STEROID-HORMONE THERAPY

To test an immunological hypothesis proposed to explain the pathogenes is of cerebrovascular thrombosis in steroid users, circulating immune complexes were assayed in the sera from 6 control subjects, 14 ever us ers of oral contraceptive having developed a neurological ischaemic ac cident, and 7 patients with the same clinical history during use of ot her sex steroid not containing ethinylestradiol. Beaumont's ammonium s ulfate and polyethylene glycol precipitation methods, together with a specific method of isolation of circulating immune complexes using aff inity chromatography on Protein A, were used. Radioactivity from label ed ethinylestradiol added to the sera before precipitation was monitor ed in the precipitates to detect anti-ethinylestradiol antibodies. The re were no significant differences for these parameters in the three g roups. However, protein content and H-3-EE activity in the precipitate s were equally and dramatically reduced after affinity chromatography in the three groups. These latter results do not support the presence of antibodies against ethinylestradiol in steroid users with cerebrova scular thrombosis. Moreover, our data suggest a lack of specificity of Beaumont's method for the isolation of immune complexes containing an ti-ethinylestradiol antibodies.