[Intravenous immunoglobulin treatment of recurrent spontaneous abortion with immunopathological background]. / Az immunpatológiai hátteru habituális vetélés kezelése terhesség alatti intravénás immunglobulinnal.

INTRODUCTION: Recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) is diagnosed if three or more spontaneous abortions follow each other typically in the first trimester. The root cause of miscarriages often can not be found. A significant proportion of this unexplained RSA cases may be caused by immunopathological failure. AIM: A multicentric clinical study started in 2000 to introduce an immunological screening protocol for patients suffering in idiopathic habitual abortion, and to use immunotherapy for their treatment if immunological background was defined. METHOD: The general checkup of the patients was managed based upon a detailed protocol, with which non-immunopathological reasons for RSA were excluded. The unexplained RSA cases underwent an immunological checkup including cellular and humoral immunological, immunogenetic and autoimmune examinations. Based upon these parameters, the immunopathological background of RSA was certified or excluded. In the confirmed immunopathological cases intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) therapy was applied during their next pregnancy, with continuous monitoring of the immunological parameters. RESULTS: 120 patients with RSA were examined, and 32 of them got IVIG therapy during their next pregnancy. In 72% of cases (23/32) IVIG treatment for RSA with immunopathological alloimmune background was successful, with the outcome of healthy newborn. Of the 9 unsuccessful cases, in 6 patients subsequently additional non-immunopathological reasons were diagnosed for their RSA. IVIG treatment of patients with clear alloimmune background was successful in 88.5% (23/26). CONCLUSION: Results show that immunopathological checkup and immunotherapy is a useful treatment in the modern medicine for the patients with unexplained RSA. However the success of this method depends on the adherence of the checkup protocol, because unsuccessful therapy of non-clear cases can reduce the efficiency.

[Advantages of living donor kidney transplantation; possibilities in the national transplantation program]. / Az élo donoros vesetranszplantáció elonyei. Lehetoségeink a hazai transzplantációs programban.

The review paper summarizes the advantages of the living donor kidney transplantation aiming that this kind of activity should get more support in Hungary. It is a general phenomenon overall the world, that there is no more possibility to increase the number of cadaver transplantations, and the outcome of them is also worsening because of the accumulation of aged patients with long time period of dialysis treatment. The paper points out the better results of living donor kidney transplantation underlining that the kidney long term survival, in general, is 10% over the cadaver kidney survival with significant less complication. The indication of living related and unrelated donor kidney transplantation is reported and the harmless of donor kidney removal demonstrated. An important part of the review contains the ethical, legal and social issue of the living donation, moreover, its economical benefit. It shows that in certain countries the living donation becomes in the forefront of the transplantation activity, which demonstrates from statistical point of view the overall benefit in comparison to cadaver transplantation. Based on the experience of those countries, which are performing this type of transplantation for a long time ago recommendation is given what should be the methodology to increase the activity in this field of transplantation.

Alloimmune and autoimmune background in recurrent pregnancy loss - successful immunotherapy by intravenous immunoglobulin.

PROBLEM: Immunotherapies [leukocyte immunization, intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG)] introduced to treat women with recurrent spontaneous abortions (RSA) have still controversial results in most clinical trials. A selection of these patients would be advantageous for higher efficacy. METHOD OF STUDY: A complex immunological panel assay was offered to patients with reproductive failure without any other known cause. We focused here on the cellular immunological parameters. RESULTS: High cytotoxic T lymphocyte precursor frequency and cell-mediated cytotoxic activity and a rather high natural killer cell activity were found in alloimmune RSA patients. Thirty-two patients were investigated by immunological assays and in 78% of the women an alloimmune background could be defined. The efficacy of IVIG treatment was 96% in this group. CONCLUSIONS: The novel cellular immunological assays proved to be favourable for the indication of RSA patients and showed the usefulness of this selection process for effective immunotherapy.