Blood changes in sex steroid hormone users. Circulating immune complexes induced by estrogens and progestogens and their relation to vascular thrombosis.

ABSTRACT

PIP: Oral contraceptives (OCs) have been shown to induce antiethinyl estradiol antibodies in some women which may be detected as circulating immune complexes by precipitation in ammonium sulphate at 25% saturation (CIC.AS). A reevaluation of the presence of CIC.AS in 644 women either receiving sex steroid hormones or not was made, and the respective role of estrogens and progestogens investigated, together with the influence of the dose. The study confirmed that CIC.AS levels were significantly different in controls (442 +or- 246 mcg/ml serum), healthy gonadal hormone users (754 +or- 700 mcg) and users with thrombosis (1331 +or- 1099 mcg/ml). These results indicated that: 1) CIC.AS could be induced by synthetic estrogens as well as progestogens but not by nonsynthetic hormones; 2) the induction of CIC.AS seemed poorly dose-related; and 3) the induction was not correlated with the duration of use; 4) high CIC.AS levels occurred as soon as 3 weeks after the beginning of synthetic gonadal hormone use in reactive women and persisted throughout treatment and decreased slowly when discontinued; and 5) CIC.AS was detected more frequently (64.7%) in women with thrombosis than in healthy users (32.2%), P0.001. The importance of the immunologic changes as a risk factor in thrombosis in OC users was evaluated in comparison with other predisposing factors and tobacco smoking.