A research team at CHA University Gangnam Women's Hospital has discovered a biomarker for the risk assessment of recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) among Korean women.

RPL refers to a case when a pregnant woman has two or more consecutive miscarriages before 20 weeks into her pregnancy.

Many factors influence recurrent miscarriage, including immune dysfunction, endocrine disorders, blood clotting disorders, and genetic disorders. In addition, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), and renin (REN) play important roles in the thrombus and thrombolysis system.

PAI-1 overexpression affects thrombus formation in various blood types, and alleles can cause chronic elevated PAI-1, leading to ischemic damage to the ovaries and ovarian failure. In addition, various researchers have reported that abnormal expression of all three genes relates to lowering fertility.

Accordingly, the hospital’s research team, led by Professor Cho Hee-young of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, performed six polymorphic genotyping and found that some increased the risk of recurrent miscarriage and some reduced the risk of recurrent miscarriage.

The team found that while PAI-1, tPA, and REN play important roles in the thrombolytic system, not all alleles increase the risk of recurrent miscarriage.

Cho explained that if hospitals manage to identify detailed alleles of the three, they can use the alleles as biomarkers to evaluate the risk of recurrent miscarriage tailored to Koreans.

"This is the first study on recurrent miscarriage in Korean women," Professor Cho said. "The team expects that the biomarker discovered to help find the cause of recurrent miscarriages and develop a treatment."