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Antibodies to spermatozoa. IX. Sperm-agglutination phenomenon in cervical mucus in vitro: a possible cause of infertility.

1977; National Institutes of Health; Volume: 129; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

Norihito Sudo, Sidney Shulman, Martin L. Stone,

Reproductive Biology and Fertility

Abstract A total of 450 infertile women were studied for sperm antibody activity in cervical mucus extracts in vitro over a three year period. Most of the patients had unexplained infertility. Twelve women, or 2.7 per cent, were found to have the sperm-agglutination phenomenon in the cervical mucus extract by means of a microscale test (MIS-agg). This incidence is minimal, since the early cases did not involve the more thorough analysis of later work. Nine of these patients were found to possess similar microscopic sperm agglutination in the sera. In the remaining three patients, the sera failed to show this activity; this could suggest the local production of sperm agglutinin. Careful clinical analysis of these 12 couples strongly suggests that the sperm agglutination in the cervical mucus is the sole reason for infertility of these couples. Cervical mucus extracts from five patients were dialyzed and showed no loss of activity. Follow-up results of six months to three years revealed three pregnancies. Two of these three women were pregnant because of condom therapy. The cervical mucus extracts of 58 women known to be fertile showed no microscale sperm agglutination. These findings suggest that microscale agglutination test phenomena in cervical mucus extracts are linked to immunologic infertility.