Prevalence Of Antiphospholipid Antibodies In Pregnant Women At A Secondary Health Care Institution In Lagos

OBJECTIVE: The presence of antiphospholipid antibody has been associated with complications in pregnancy; hence the need to determine the prevalence of this antibody in pregnant women attending the ante-natal clinic in a secondary health care institution inLagos metropolis using screening tests.SUBJECTS AND METHODS A cross-sectional study was carried out on a total of one hundred and thirty one (131) women attending obstetrics and gynaecology clinic at the General hospital Surulere Lagos from 1 st to 18 th February 2005. Out of these attendees, 37 were non-pregnant, 31 were pregnant with no complications in pregnancy (apparently normal) and 63 pregnant women with complications in pregnancy. Blood samples were collected from ante-natal patients after obtaining informed consent. The plasma of all the samples were subjected to kaolin clotting time and the serum of forty-three (43) of the samples were run on an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the semi quantitative determination of IgG and IgM anticardiolipin antibodies.RESULTS: A prevalence of 9.3% was obtained for the antiphospholipid antibodies by the coagulation-based kaolin clotting time, and 2.3% by a more sensitive immunological-based ELISA test on the same set of patients.CONCLUSION: In order to avoid false positive results, it is recommended that immunological-based ELISA test be carried out on patients that test positive to kaolin clotting time and/or have clinical features suggestive of the presence of antiphospholipid antibody before they are commenced on therapy.