Depressed mixed lymphocyte culture reactivity in mothers with recurrent spontaneous abortion

One-way mixed wife-husband lymphocyte culture (MLC) reaction as well as human lymphocyte antigen (HLA) typing were performed on 29 couples, most of whom were infertile because of recurrent spontaneous abortion, and compared with 35 fertile couples with no abortion history. The 29 couples had been selected from 280 couples with a karyotyped spontaneous abortion. A significantly depressed MLD response (P=0.04) was observed in mothers of karyotypically normal abortuses when stimulated by the fathers but not when they were stimulated by males from the fertile couples. No significant difference in the frequency of HLA-A-and HLA-B-incompatible matings, respectively, was found between the abortion and the fertile couples. It is concluded that depressed maternal cellular response to paternal stimulation can be explained as a consequence of recurrent spontaneous abortion and that it is uncertain whether this depressed response plays a role in the etiology of recurrent abortion.