Abstract:
TORCH is a medical acronym for a set of prenatal infections that are passed
from pregnant women to their fetuses [Toxoplasma (TO), Rubella virus (R).
Cytomegalovirus (C) and Herpes simplex virus I and II (HSV-I and HSV-II)].
The main aim of this study was to investigate the seroprevalence of anti-
TORCH IgM antibodeis among pregnant women attending Yastabshiroon
Medical Hospital, during the period from March to Augast, 2011.
Blood samples were aseptically, collected from pregnant women (n= 75) as test
group and non-pregnant women (n= 25) as control group. The age of women
tested for antibodies varied from 17 to 55 years with all three trimester of
pregnancy. Both immunochromatography test (ICT) and Enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were used to detect anti-TORCH IgM in the
serum of all tested women. The results revealed that all women examined were
negative for both Toxoplasma gondii and rubella specific IgM antibodies.
However, 8 out of 75 (8/75) were CMV IgM positive (10.7%), 4 (4/75) were
anti-HSV-I IgM positive (5.3%), and 3 (3/75) were anti-HSV-II IgM positive
(4%),
All
non-pregnant
women
examined
(control
group)
showed no detectable anti-TORCH antibodies. ELISA was shown to be fairly
more sensitive (P < 0.05) in detecting anti-TORCH antibodies in comparison to
ICT. There was no significant difference (P > 0.05) observed between trimester
of pregnancy on CMV and HSV-I IgM antibodies. While previous abortions
had no significant effect (P > 0.05) on detection of all TORCH
IgM
antibodies, significant effect (P < 0.05) was obtained for anti-CMV antibodies
of pregnant women with previous malformed children, but not for HSV-I and
HSV-II.
