Estimation of lupus anticoagulant in women with recurrent miscarriages.

Abstract

Objective: To determine the frequency of lupus anticoagulant (LA) in women presenting with recurrent miscarriages and to measure the LA in women with recurrent miscarriage in our setup. Study Design: Cross-sectional Descriptive study. Setting: Department of Pathology, Islamic International Medical College (IIMC), Rawalpindi. Period: Oct 2020 to Oct 2021. Methods: Total sample of 162 females was recruited for this study with three consecutive miscarriages before 24 weeks of gestation. All the patients were screened for Lupus anticoagulant (LA) by screening (LA1) reagent. Samples with positive (LA1) were then repeated after 6 weeks. Results: A total of 10 (6.1%) patients tested positive for LA on the first screening test. There were 152 (93.8%) patients with negative results at this stage. When the test was repeated after six weeks, only four out of the 10 tested positive. Thus, a total of four (2.4%) out of 162 patients were categorized as seropositive for LA. There were 158 (97.5%) negative results at this stage. Conclusion: In conclusion, the detection of Lupus Anticoagulant (LA) poses ongoing challenges, primarily due to the absence of specific tests. Our study underscores the urgent necessity for a truly specific diagnostic tool. Despite the costly automated testing methods and the employment of LA-sensitive APTT, our findings reveal a scarcity of confirmed and repeated LAC positivity, even within high-risk patient cohorts.