A Possible Mechanism of Immunotherapy for Patients With Recurrent Spontaneous Abortions

The mechanism of the beneficial effect of immunotherapy for human reproductive wastage remains to be elucidated. Induction of blocking antibodies such as anti-HLA class II antibodies and anti-idiotypic antibodies was investigated as the mechanism of specific immunosuppression in pregnancy. We reported the changes in the mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR), T-cell subsets, and generation of anti-idiotypic antibodies after immunotherapy compared to before immunotherapy. MLR was significantly (P less than 0.001) inhibited after the immunization. The mean inhibition rate was 50.2%, suggesting that MLR blocking antibodies were induced by immunotherapy. Binding of autoantibodies to alloactivated maternal lymphoblasts against the paternal lymphocytes was detected in postimmunization cases in two-color flow-cytometric experiments. This suggests that anti-idiotypic antibodies were induced by the immunotherapy. The percentage of cytotoxic T-cells was significantly decreased (P less than 0.05) and the percentage of suppressor T-cells was significantly increased (P less than 0.01) after the immunotherapy, suggesting that a cell-mediated immune response was induced by the immunotherapy.