IMMUNE DYSFUNCTIONS IN WOMEN WITH INFERTILITY OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN

Abstract

The study deals with evaluation of immune parameters in healthy fertile women (n = 48) versus female patients with infertility of unknown origin (n = 386). A comparative analysis has shown similar patterns of immune dysfunction in women with primary infertility (n = 179) and recurrent spontaneous abortion (n = 207). The most common markers of immune dysfunction include decreased production of blocking antibodies (86.5% of cases), low proliferative response to paternal alloantigens in mixed leukocyte reaction (MLR) shown in 51.5% of cases, and increased number of activated CD56+CD16+NK-cells (42.0%). Decreased production of MLR-blocking antibodies may be caused by low lymphocyte response, due to the partner's HLA-similarity, or by predominance of Th1/proinflammatory cytokines and low contents of circulating regulatory CD4+CD25+T-cells. The study results demonstrate that development of primary infertility and recurrent spontaneous abortions is associated with a uniform set of immune disorders, thus probably reflecting a failure of suppressor rearrangement within immune system during periovulatory period of menstrual cycle.

Keywords

• infertility
• blocking antibodies
• cytokines
• nk-cells
• t-cells regulatory