مجلة كلية الطب (Apr 2008)
Down-Regulation of Progesterone hormone in Recurrent pregnancy Loss
Abstract
Background: Progesterone hormone is important in the preparation for and in maintaining of pregnancy through different mechanisms but mainly by shifting the balance from Th1 to Th2 mediated immunity to avoid rejection of the fetus; in this study we tried to find out whether there is a relation between the level of the expression of progesterone and its stimulant HCG hormone and recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL). Patients and Methods: Immunohistochemistry technique was performed to detect and determine the expression of progesterone and HCG hormones using paraffin embedded sections of curate samples obtained from 40 women, who where divided into three groups: 24 women with RPL, 10 women with abortion for the first time, and 6 women with induced abortion. Results: The levels of the expression of both progesterone and HCG hormones were found to be significantly down-regulated in the first group as compared with the second group (p=0.00), and the third group (p=0.00), with a highly significant positive correlation between these two parameters (r=0.866, p<0.01). Conclusion: Low expression of progesterone in women with RPL could raise the possibility of underlying immuno-endocrine pathology responsible for this recurrent loss due to the important role of progesterone as an immunosuppressive hormone help in maintaining pregnancy.
