London - Thousands of women could be spared the heartbreak of serial miscarriages thanks to a breakthrough by British doctors.
The Warwick University medics believe they have found the root cause of the devastating condition, paving the way for inexpensive treatments.
Researcher Siobhan Quenby, who aims to have a test and treatment available within five years, said: “Recurrent miscarriage is incredibly destructive. This offers real hope.”
One in 100 women trying to start a family suffers from recurrent miscarriage, defined as losing at least three pregnancies in a row. Blood tests flag up the cause in 15 to 20 percent of women, but in most cases there is nothing doctors can do to help, other than offer more frequent scans.
To find out why some women’s pregnancies fail time after time, the researchers looked at the lining of the womb tissue, key to achieving and maintaining a pregnancy. Stem cells in the lining lead to it being constantly replenished and renewed throughout a woman’s life. The women who had suffered recurrent miscarriages had fewer of these cells, and those they did have were genetically different.
As a result, the lining of the womb was older and less able to prepare for pregnancy, the journal Stem Cells reports. Study leader Jan Brosens, a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology, said: “We have discovered that the lining of the womb in the recurrent miscarriage patients we studied is already defective before pregnancy.
“I can envisage that we will be able to correct these defects before the patient tries to achieve another pregnancy. In fact, this may be the only way to really prevent miscarriages in these cases.”
The researchers hope to develop a test to determine how many stem cells a woman has in the lining of her womb. They are also poised to run trials of two potential treatments.
In one, women will undergo a slight scratching of the lining of their womb, in a bid to spur sleeping stem cells into action. In the other, they will be given drugs that are already used to treat diabetes and are thought to boost stem cells. Professor Quenby hopes the test and treatment could be offered for under £1 000 (about R21 000) a woman, adding: “That is very, very cheap if we are right – and incredible if the outcome is a baby.”
She said that while most people can cope with one miscarriage, the highs of becoming pregnant only to lose the baby time and time again can be much harder to deal with. Prof Quenby added: “Recurrent miscarriage can cause an awful amount of suffering and grief, as well as anxiety and depression and time off work for the mother and the father.
‘”It is an awful thing to keep going through and there are very few answers at the moment, which is why I hope this is going to be such a big step forward.”
Jane Brewin, chief executive of the baby charity Tommy’s, said: “The recent discoveries by Prof Jan Brosens and his team are very exciting because for the first time in miscarriage research we have a target to aim at which could help many couples. “
Finding an underlying cause for miscarriage could revolutionise screening and care and potentially lead to treatments which could prevent couples experiencing recurrent miscarriage which devastates their lives.
“Parents around the UK will now have real hope and that’s the most precious gift of all for the many thousands of couples struggling with miscarriage.”
She said the charity will help fund the team’s search for a test and treatment, with the aim of accelerating “this great work into clinical benefits as soon as possible”.
Daily Mail