Blood Disease Risk to Unborn Children

By REBECCA SMITH

THOUSANDS of women in London could be suffering from repeated miscarriages because of an undiagnosed blood condition, an expert warned today.

One in every 1,000 women has lupus – which causes the immune system to go into overdrive – but most do not know it. Today GPs were urged to be on the alert for the condition, which could affect as many as 5,000 women in the capital.

Doctors often dismiss symptoms as growing pains, glandular fever or migraine, but left untreated, lupus can cause fatal blood clots and damage the brain and kidneys. In some forms the blood becomes sticky, triggering a miscarriage.

Some women have had several miscarriages before the problem is detected.

The leading expert on the condition, Professor Graham Hughes, today called for better diagnosis. He said a large proportion of the 250,000 miscarriages in Britain each year could be a result of lupus which, in some cases, can be overcome simply by taking aspirin to thin the blood.

Professor Hughes, who was a consultant at St Thomas’ Hospital, was the first to identify the sticky blood form of lupus, known as Hughes syndrome.

He said: “Sticky blood lupus is the most common cause of recurrent miscarriage. But lupus is often mislabelled because the symptoms are non-specific.

“GPs need to consider lupus when faced with patients complaining of months of migraines, fatigue, aches and pains, prolonged flu, rashes or miscarriage.

It can be excluded with a simple blood test.”

Tests for lupus – which gets its name from the “wolf-bite” rash that can appear across the face of sufferers – cost Pounds 40.