Study population
Patients who were subjected to a visit at the Fertility Center of
Shenzhen Zhongshan Urology Hospital, China, from January 2016 to October
2017 were enrolled in this study. Women who experienced two or more
consecutive habitual miscarriage were included in the RM group, while
fertile women who experienced at least one successful pregnancy without
any abortions were included in the control group. An initial
investigation was performed in all women before the recruitment and
included the collection of information regarding the medical history,
karyotype analysis, systemic and gynecological examination, and
endocrine examinations.
The exclusion criteria were the
following: patients with (1) abnormal chromosome karyotype; (2)
infection with toxoplasma gondii, syphilis, HIV, hepatitis B
virus, hepatitis C virus, rubella virus, cytomegalovirus or herpes
virus ; (3) genital tract malformations; (4) abnormal endocrine hormone
level; (5) a male infertile partner. All the enrolled patients were not
pregnant and they did not receive any drug therapy when the peripheral
blood was collected. According to the above screening criteria, 49
patients with RM and 11 fertile women were recruited in this study.
This
study was performed according to the “Declaration of Helsinki”, and
the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of Shenzhen Zhongshan
Urology Hospital. All patients enrolled in this study provided written
informed consent.