Tuberculosis Associated with HLA—B8, Bf S in a Newfoundland Community Study

Abstract

In 3 adjacent Newfoundland communities comprising some 1500 people, 589 people have been HLA typed. Forty-six of the typed people gave a history of previous clinical tuberculosis which required treatment. Fifty-six percent of the TB patients carried HLA B8 compared with 20% of the remainder of the population. This is a highly significant difference (P < 0.01). In each community the frequency of B8 as an epidemiological marker correlated with the incidence of tuberculosis. B8 is associated with TB in this study with a relative risk of 5.2 which compares with combined relative risks in the literature for celiac disease and Addison''s disease of 9.5 and 6.4, respectively, and which is greater than the risks for all the other B8-related diseases. The factor B allele, Bf S, was found on all the B8 haplotypes, but the overall Bf gene frequencies in tuberculosis patients did not deviate from expected values.