LifeQuest Centre for Reproductive Medicine

T.E.R.M. Programme: Dr. Carl Laskin, Director and Managing Partner at LifeQuest, has had a clinical research programme in effect for more than 20 years investigating causes of recurrent miscarriage. The T.E.R.M. programme (Treatment and Evaluation of Recurrent Miscarriage) recently completed a large randomized clinical trial (the HepASA trial) that compared two treatment protocols for women with a history of recurrent miscarriage. Women in that study had specific autoantibodies in their blood (antiphospholipid antibodies) that could interfere with fetal development either early in the pregnancy, preventing proper embryo implantation, or later on, interfering with blood supply to the growing fetus.

The T.E.R.M. Programme is currently the only Canadian centre participating in an international observational 5-year trial funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US called the PROMISSE study. Blood and urine samples are collected throughout pregnancy from women with and without a history of pregnancy loss and autoimmune disease. The samples are monitored for the presence of autoantibodies and proteins involved in the coagulation process in an attempt to better understand their role in pregnancy loss. Dr. Laskin’s research lab is one of three international core labs for this study, receiving plasma samples weekly from around the US and from our own patients, and testing them for coagulation proteins.

Read more about this programme.