Treatment of 139 pregnancies in antiphospholipid-positive women not fulfilling criteria for antiphospholipid syndrome: a retrospective study.

Objective: The effect of low-dose aspirin (LDA) on pregnancy outcome in antiphospholipid (aPL)-positive women not fulfilling the criteria for antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (APS) was evaluated retrospectively.

Methods: We evaluated 139 pregnancies of 114 aPL-positive women not fulfilling the Sydney classification criteria for definite APS (104 treated with LDA, 35 untreated). Inclusion criteria consisted of (1) any titer of aPL and no previous pregnancy or no pregnancy losses (defined as aPL carriers); (2) any titer of aPL and 1 or 2 pregnancy losses before the 10th gestational week.

Risk factors for pregnancy failure in patients with anti-phospholipid syndrome treated with conventional therapies: a multicentre, case-control study.

Objective: To identify the risk factors associated with pregnancy failure in patients with APS treated with conventional therapy.

Methods: A multicentre, case-control study was conducted to compare APS patients with successful and unsuccessful pregnancy outcomes. We retrospectively considered 410 pregnancies of women diagnosed with primary APS.

Increased apoptosis in circulating lymphocyte cultures of anti-RNA polymerase III positive patients with systemic sclerosis.

The sera of 39 patients (38 women and 1 man), 16 with limited and 23 with diffuse clinical form of systemic sclerosis (SSc), were tested for anti-centromere (ACA), anti-topoisomerase I (ATA) and anti-RNA polymerase III (ARA) antibodies. The presence of apoptotic cells in cultures of circulating lymphocytes was investigated using the TUNEL (terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated deoxyuridine triphosphate nick end labeling) technique. ACAs were present in 16 (41%), ATA in 15 (38%) and ARA in 8 (21%) cases.