Articles - Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia

Purpose: to evaluate the prevalence of anticardiolipin antibody in women with stillbirth. Patients and Methods: this was a cross-sectional study performed from May 1998 to September 1999 at the Maternity of the University of Campinas and at the Hospital and Maternity Leonor Mendes de Barros, in Brazil, which evaluated 109 pregnant women hospitalized with the diagnosis of intrauterine fetal death and gestational age of 20 or more weeks. These women underwent some laboratory examinations to identify the cause of fetal death, including anticardiolipin antibody evaluation performed through the determination of IgG and IgM serum levels. IgG and IgM results are expressed as GPL and MPL units, respectively, and, in both cases, results above 10 units are considered positive. The statistical procedures used were the mean and standard deviation estimates, Student’s t test, Fisher test and chi². Results: the prevalence of anticardiolipin positivity was 18.3%. The women were predominantly young, with a mean age around 27 years. The main identified causes of fetal death were: hypertension (26.1%), hemorrhage during the third trimester (9.9%) and fetal malformation (8.1%). One third of the cases had no identified causes of fetal death. However, considering the 20 positive cases for anticardiolipin antibody, the proportion of unidentified causes decreased to 29%. Conclusions: it is important to investigate the presence of anticardiolipin antibodies among women with intrauterine fetal death with the purpose of clarifying the causes of stillbirth. If the diagnosis of antiphospholipid syndrome is confirmed, it is necessary to counsel and treat these women regarding future pregnancies.