Evaluation of Antinuclear Antibodies and Differential Leucocyte Count in ABO Typed Women with Spontaneous Abortion in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria

Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the anti-nuclear antibodies and differential leucocytes count in ABO typed women with spontaneous abortion (SA) in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria.

Study Design: Cohort cross-sectional study.

Place and Duration of Study: Scanex Diagnostics No 58a Nikton Road, Kpansia. Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria, between January, 2018 and August, 2018.

Methodology: A total of 150 females were recruited; 50 with unexplained history of SA (UHSA) and 50 with unexplained recent SA (URSA) formed the test groups while 50 apparently healthy females who have children, with no recent or history of abortion were used as control. 5ml of venous blood was collected using standard venipunture technique from each participant, out of which (2mls) was dispensed into ethylene-diaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) bottles, and was used for DLC by manual spread technique and ABO testing, using the tile method. The remaining 3ml of blood was used to analyse ANAs by the ELISA Assay technique.

Results: The study participants, UHSAURSA and Control showed that the age group of 31-35years have the majority of spontaneous abortion of 18(36%), 13 (26%) and 12(24%) respectively. In the Blood group study, majority of blood group were B; 4 (40%), 3(22.2%), 1 (16.6%) and O 7 (22.5%), 3 (8.1%), 3 (9.6%) respectively. Out of the 9 blood group B, URSA subjects only 3 of them tested positive for ANAs, out of 10 blood group B UHSA subjects only 4 of them tested positive for ANAs & out of the 6 blood group B control participants only 1 of them tested positive for ANAs; out of the 37 blood group O URSA subjects only 3 of them tested positive for ANAs, also out of the 31 blood group O UHSA subjects, only 7 tested positive for ANAs and out of the 6 blood group O control participants only 1 tested positive for ANAs. Out of the 50 subjects with URSA, only 6 tested positive for ANAs, also out of the 50 UHSA subjects only 11 tested positive for ANAs and out of the 50 control participants only 4 tested positive for ANAs. The mean ANAs value (0.13 ± 0.11 and 0.20 ± 0.03) in URSA and UHSA were significantly lower (p<.05) compared to the control (0.07± 0.01) (p=.001) subjects. Also, the mean monocyte value (3.12±1.70and2.54±1.71) in URSA and UHSA were significantly higher (p<.05) when compared to the control (2.20±1.48) (p=.020) subjects respectively. There was no significant (p>0.05) difference between the mean neutrophil, lymphocytes and eosinophil values (54.56 ± 10.25 and 56.28 ± 11.12; 41.62 ± 11.15 and 40.56 ± 11.25; 0.32 ± 0.94 and 0.62 ± 1.01) in the same order when compared to that of the control (56.10 ± 10.56; 41.08 ± 10.58; 0.52 ± 0.88) (p=.67; p=.89; p=.27) subjects in the same order.

Conclusion: Age, ANAs, ABO and monocyte could be responsible for unexplained SA. It is recommended that ANAs, Blood group and DLC be adequately checked in early pregnancy, for this shall further aid the prediction and prevention of spontaneous abortion.