Objective: To determine prevalence, clinical association and predictive power of antiphospholipid antibodies in pregnancy.
Design: To test for the presence of anticardiolipin antibodies and lupus anticoagulant in order to confirm prevalence data which imply that each antibody has the same clinical significance. A detailed obstetric history and the outcome measures were obtained from each patient in the study.
Setting: National Women's Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand.
Subjects: Nine hundred and thirty-three consecutively booked pregnant women.
Main outcome measures: Prevalence of auto-antibodies; perinatal morbidity and mortality; incidence of pre-eclampsia, growth retardation and fetal distress.
Results: Nine women (1.0%) had anticardiolipin antibodies, 11 (1.2%) had lupus anticoagulant and two had both antibodies. The fetal mortality rate for women with antibodies was 167/1000. Pre-eclampsia occurred significantly more often in women with auto-antibodies.
Conclusion: The presence of antiphospholipid antibodies is frequently associated with adverse pregnancy outcome (9/18 pregnancies). High titre anticardiolipin antibodies carry a poor prognosis.