The status of anti‐ovarian antibody immunoassays: Valid or invalid, in or out?

Abstract

There has been a paradign shift in the status of immunoassays. There used to be a time where immunoassays had a very narrow role in clinical medicine, but that is not the case in today‘s world. Immunoassays have taken a central role in helping us better understand and treat human diseases. The literature around anti‐ovarian antibodies (AOA) immunoassay testings have been conflicting. Researchers challenged the specificity of the reported assays, but a systematic study was never elucidated on what/who the trouble maker was in rendering these tests so nonspecific. Attempts were made by our group in Mumbai, India, to throw light on the culprit behind the nonspecificity casative factor in the immunoassays and a method to overcome this was reported and published. This review highlights the stories back five and a half decades to date, to demonstrate where the status of AOA testing was, is and will be.

Special issue: Clinical reproductive immunology: Indian perspective

“…Pires and Parikh have reviewed the literature on the relevance and efficacy of immunoassays for antiovarian antibodies including their own efforts to identify the cause and a method to overcome non-specificity in these immunoassays. 11 Gajbhiye R. reviewed their group's experiences of the inflammatory immune response, autoimmunity, comorbidities and clinical phenotypes in Indian women with endometriosis. 12 Their investigations revealed presence of anti-endometrial antibodies (AEAs) in Indian women with endometriosis that are majorly targeting tropomyosin 3, stomatin-like protein2 and tropomodulin 3. necrosis factor along with the promising novel immunomodulatory therapies.…”

“…Autoimmune response directed against the proteins expressed in gonads, germ cells and accessory organs involved in reproduction is a major contributor to infertility. Pires and Parikh have reviewed the literature on the relevance and efficacy of immunoassays for anti‐ovarian antibodies including their own efforts to identify the cause and a method to overcome non‐specificity in these immunoassays 11 . Gajbhiye R. reviewed their group's experiences of the inflammatory immune response, autoimmunity, comorbidities and clinical phenotypes in Indian women with endometriosis 12 .…”