RISK OF MISCARRIAGE AND A COMMON VARIANT OF THE ESTROGEN-RECEPTOR GENE

An inherited variant of the estrogen receptor gene was previously sugg ested to be a major determinant of a woman's risk of miscarriage. The authors tested this hypothesis in a case-control study of 29 women who had two or more miscarriages and 29 women with no miscarriages. All o f the women had given birth in North Carolina between 1987 and 1990. E strogen receptor genotype was determined by direct sequencing of DNA. The gene variant that supposedly produced the risk was found to contai n only a silent substitution at codon 87. Furthermore, instead of an o dds ratio of 25 (predicted by the previous study), the odds ratio foun d was 1.8 (95% confidence interval 0.3-11). For a hypothesis which now lacks biologic plausibility, this weak association provides little re ason for further investigation.