Exploring New Antibody Treatments for Recurrent Pregnancy Loss and Improving Pregnancy Success

Understanding Recurrent Pregnancy Loss and Its Complications

Recurrent pregnancy loss occurs in women who have lost two or more pregnancies for unknown reasons. Dr. Kenji Tanimura and his team at Kobe University found that many of these women have a specific antibody in their blood that can be used for treating the condition.

Tanimura points out that, while no known treatment exists for this condition, the antibodies are similar to another medical condition that already has a treatment. He decided to test whether that existing treatment could also work for women with this newly identified antibody. About 20% of women who have recurrent pregnancy loss test positive for an antibody that attacks their bodies.

Treatment Improves Live Birth Rates and Lowers Complications

A research team from Kobe University has discovered a treatment that significantly improves the chances for these women without pregnancy complications.

Tanimura enlisted the help of obstetricians across five hospitals in Japan and for two years analyzed the blood of consenting women suffering from recurrent pregnancy loss for the antibodies. If any of these women got pregnant during this time frame, their doctors would offer treatment options also containing those drugs that are effective against the chemically similar condition, specifically, low-dose aspirin or a drug called heparin.

The research team then observed how many of the women who included these drugs in their treatment had full-term live births or pregnancy complications and compared that to the pregnancy outcomes in women who did not take either of the two drugs.

Aspirin and Heparin Increase Live Birth Rates for Antibody-Positive Women

The Kobe University researchers published their results in the journal Frontiers in Immunology. They report that women who received the treatment were much more likely to have live births (87% did) compared to the ones without treatment (of which only 50% had live births). In addition, amongst the live births, the treatment reduced the likelihood of complications from 50% to 6%.

The sample size was rather small (39 women received the treatment and 8 did not), but the results still clearly show that a treatment with low-dose aspirin or heparin is very effective in preventing pregnancy loss or complications also in women who have these newly discovered self-targeting antibodies. Many women who tested positive for the newly discovered self-targeting antibodies also tested positive for the previously known ones. However, the Kobe University-led team found that women who only had the newly discovered antibodies and who received the treatment were even more likely to have a live birth (93%), and, amongst these, none had pregnancy complications.