Some severe maternal diseases might be caused by fetal-versus-maternal disease (FVMD).
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.
Yan
Lei
L
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Provincial Hospital affiliated to Shandong University, Jinan, China.
Zuo
Changting
C
Wei
Deying
D
Zhao
Xingbo
X
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*
D000941:Antigens