Impact of intravenous immunoglobulin on peripheral blood natural killer cells in women with recurrent spontaneous abortion

Abstract

Objective To explore the impact of intravenous immunoglobulin on peripheral blood natural killer (NK) cells in women with recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA).Methods Of 38 patients with RSA who had been hospitalized during the period of January 2011 to June 2012,18 patients received intravenous immunoglobulin (study group) while the rest 20 who refused to receive immunoglobulin were assigned to a control group.Peripheral NK cell cytotoxicity and rate of NK cells in all types of lymphocytes were detected before and after treatment by flow cytometry.Results NK cell cytotoxicity was(22.4 + 7.9)％ in the study group and (21.7 ± 8.1)％ in the control group before treatment,was (15.0 ± 4.2)％ in the study group and (25.6 ± 7.9)％ in the control group after treatment.Before treatment,the rate of NK cell was (25.1 ± 9.4) ％ in the study group and (24.0 ± 9.0) ％ in the control group,while after treatment it was (26.2 ± 8.7) ％ in the study group and (23.6 ± 6.8) ％ in the control group.NK cell c.vtotoxicity but not the rate of NK cell was significantly reduced (P＜0.05) in the study group.After treatment,NK cell cytotoxicity and the rate of NK cell did not differ significantly (P＞0.05).88.9％ of the patients in the study group but 55.0％ of the patients in the control group had pregnancy duration of longer than 24 weeks after tocolytic treatment (P＜0.05).Conclusions Intravenous immunoglobulin can reduce NK cell cytotoxicity,leading to an increase in the success rate of miscarriage prevention in patients with recurrent spontaneous abortion. Key words: Recurrent spontaneous abortion; Intravenous immunoglobulin; Natural killer cells