title: Some severe maternal diseases might be caused by fetal-versus-maternal disease (FVMD).
abstract: Pregnancy-related disease is a common challenging clinical problem. From our review and clinical experience, we hypothesize that many severe pregnancy-related complications might be caused by a fetal-versus-maternal disease (FVMD), based on the fact that maternal disease is related to immunity and that fetal cells are present in maternal blood. Fetus is a semi-antigen and can be considered as a tumor or graft. The pathophysiology of FVMD must be complex. We speculate it to be a three-step process: impaired maternal immunological function, fetal T-cell activation and injury of target organs. More experiments and research will be needed to prove our hypothesis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Provincial Hospital affiliated to Shandong University, Jinan, China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Changting
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zuo
authors.forename: Deying
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Xingbo
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhao
mesh_terms: D000941:Antigens / Q000276:immunology; D005260:Female; D005333:Fetus / Q000276:immunology*; D006086:Graft vs Host Disease / Q000276:immunology; D054502:Histocompatibility, Maternal-Fetal / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D000941:Antigens