In addition to ultrasonographic monitoring of folliculogenesis, urinary luteinizing hormone testing, luteal phase endometrial biopsy, serum antiphospholipid antibodies, etc., immunologic tests are recently being used to evaluate reproductive disorders. In this study, sharing of HLA-A, B, C and DR antigens and the presence of antipaternal cytotoxic antibody (APCA) was assessed using microcytotoxicity method. Subjects of the study were 103 infertile couples, 47 fertile couples with 2-3 children and 123 couples with recurrent spontaneous abortions (RSA). The results showed that the presence of antipatemal cytotoxic antibody is associated with fertility rather than infertility (p<0.0001), but sharing of HLA antigens failed to show any significant difference between infertile and fertile couples or couples who experienced spontaneous abortions compared with normal couples. Therefore it appears that HLA antigen sharing is not associated with pregnancy outcome and other antigen(s) may be involved in this process. Assessment of APCA could be useful in predicting the pregnancy outcome.

Keywords: APCA; HLA-antigen; RSA; fertile.

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