Behçs Disease: Lack of Correlation of Clinical Manifestations with HLA Antigens

Abstract

It was suggested that certain tissue types are associated with different clinical Behcet''s disease manifestations in Japan and England [UK]. Regional differences in the associations between HLA antigens and Behcet''s disease were established. Patients (119) with Behcet''s disease were tissue typed in Istanbul [Turkey]. An attempt was made to correlate various clinical manifestations with HLA antigens. The frequency of only 1 tissue antigen, HLA-B5, was increased in these series. HLA-B5 was present in 94 of 119 patients (77%) compared to 89 of 268 controls (33%), P < 0.0001, ARR = 6.79. Age of onset, sex, incidences of ocular disease, arthritis, thrombophlebitis and erythema nodosum did not show any positive or negative associations with any of the alleles tested.