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Prednisone and Aspirin Doesn't Prevent Miscarriages

From: C-upi@clari.net (UPI)
Subject: Study: Miscarriage prevention fails
Organization: Copyright 1997 by United Press International
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 18:30:44 PDT

WASHINGTON, July 16 (UPI) -- A study of women who have had a series of miscarriages has cast doubt on the usefulness of a common treatment.

Researchers say today in The New England Journal of Medicine that dosing these pregnant women with prednisone and aspirin does not seem to prevent additional miscarriages.

However, other doctors say this study alone will not end the debate over whether the treatment might work for some women.

Carl Laskin from the University of Toronto led the study, which focused on about 200 women. They had each suffered at least two unexplained miscarriages. They had also tested positive for at least one kind of autoantibody, a type of rogue immune system cell that attacks the body's own tissue.

Doctors have wondered whether misfiring immune cells could trigger an otherwise mysterious miscarriage. Since the 1980s, doctors have sometimes tried to prevent miscarriages by prescribing drugs -- like aspirin and prednisone -- known to act on the immune system. These treatments still rank as experimental, but researchers say they are not uncommon.

However, Laskin's team from Toronto and Oxford University in the United Kingdom, found no significant benefit to the treatment and some hints of harm. Women who took the drugs were more likely than a comparison group to have premature babies and develop high blood pressure and diabetes during pregnancy.

Dr. Susan Cowchock, who was not on the research team, says she still considers the treatment worth studying. Cowchock, from New York University School of Medicine, points out that testing a more restricted group of women might yield different results.