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Chlamydial antibodies in women who suffer miscarriage
Objective:
To ascertain the relation between previous chlamydial infection and miscarriage.
Design:
A prospective study of 349 women who had a miscarriage.
Participants:
Women surgically treated for spontaneous pregnancy loss on an outpatient basis at a hospital.
Subjects:
Three hundred and forty-nine women who miscarried, of whom 91 had at least one previous miscarriage and 33 had had two or more miscarriages previously. Age-matched women who had a normal pregnancy served as controls.
Interventions:
Blood samples were drawn from patients and controls for antibody determination.
Main Outcome Measures:
Patients and controls were compared regarding the frequency of Chlamydia trachomatis IgG antibodies (titre > or = 1/32). Antibodies to C. pneumoniae were also analysed to study cross reactivity.
Results:
The frequency of IgG antibodies among the patients was 137/349 (39.3%) which was not statistically different from that among controls (116/349; 33.2%). Even among those who had miscarried previously the antibody frequencies did not differ significantly between patients and controls. The rate of C. trachomatis antibodies was about the same whether or not antibodies to C. pneumoniae were present in both patients and controls.
Conclusion:
No association was found serologically between previous chlamydial infection and miscarriage and no significant cross reactivity between C. pneumoniae and C. trachomatis could be detected.