Abstract

Background and Aim: Abortion is spontaneous termination of pregnancy before the 20th week. Recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL), also referred to as recurrent miscarriage or habitual abortion, is historically defined as 3 consecutive pregnancy losses. There are several known risk factors associated with recurrent miscarriages, including genetic, endocrine, autoimmune, anatomical. Causes of recurrent miscarriages in 50 of the cases remain unexplained. It has been hypothesized that genetic polymorphism in estrogen receptor genes would be associated with recurrent miscarriages. Material and Materials: This study included 80 patients with a history of three or more consecutive unexplained abortions and 80 women with at least 2 live births without any miscarriage. Then we investigated estrogen receptor gene polymorphism in the participants by allele specific polymerase chain reaction (AS-PCR) method. Results: The frequencies of rs1256149 polymorphisms among the women with recurrent abortions and also the women in the control group were 80 and 62.5 respectively. There was a significant difference in the genotype frequencies between RPL and the control groups (p=0.028). Conclusion: These findings indicated that estrogen receptor polymorphism can be regarded as a genetic marker for recurrent spontaneous abortions. © 2015, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved.