LIT or Lymphocyte Immunisation Therapy is considered when a prospective mother has many miscarriages or implantation failures. The process becomes a viable solution if the miscarriages are a result of immunologic reasons. LIT is not considered as a first-line therapy and several factors need to be excluded before it can be taken as an option. The concept was introduced first in 1981 and became popular in the treatment of women who have had several recurrent miscarriages. The treatment can even be considered if IVF has not provided a successful solution.
Why should LIT be chosen as a possible treatment?
As much as 5% of the couples who are in reproductive age could be suffering from recurrent miscarriage. This might lead to a lot of health problems like spousal relationships, the health of the patient and even the quality of life. However, the exact cause of the problem is not known. There could be multiple factors at play. Diagnosis and treatment could become controversial. The known causes include anatomical disorders, factors related to the endocrine system, thrombophilic factors, chromosomal abnormalities, reproductive tract infections and autoimmune abnormalities. However, in as much as 50-60% of the patients, not clear cause can be found. This case is known as unexplained recurrent miscarriage and most of them are linked with alloimmune factors.
Our body does not accept anything that is foreign to it immunologically. Pregnancy is formed 50% from the mother and 50% from the father. The part which come from the father is totally foreign to the mother’s body. So, the baby is 50% different from the mother. Still, the mother accepts the foetus in a normal pregnancy. The development of the foetus is maintained as an allograft and it benefits from the maternal-foetal immune tolerance. But it has been seen that in some cases, this might not be the case. This is when immunotherapy with the paternal lymphocytes came into use. They have been used in the unexplained cases since the 1980s and the outcome in such pregnancy has been positive.
The immunotherapy with the help of lymphocytes is one of the most common treatments for unexplained cases of recurrent pregnancy. The method has been studied extensively and it has been found that there have been improved pregnancy results. Low-dose LIT therapy is the most helpful in most cases. The miscarriage rate for parents go down and there is an increased live birth rate. Immunotherapy is more successful in cases where immunological tests show abnormality. So LIT would certainly increase the chances of a successful pregnancy if there are cases of immune problems.
The dosage in the immunotherapy also has a lot of effects. It has been noted that a low dose of lymphocytes is far more effective than a higher dose. Also, there have been studies which show that the lymphocytes would work better if they are fresh and not refrigerated after donation. Also, improved results can be seen through intradermal administration. LIT becomes the only option in cases when the recurrent pregnancy losses are unexplained and there are certain immune abnormalities.