HLA and Disease Susceptibility: A Primer

Abstract

Several hundred papers, each reporting an increased frequency of one or more HLA antigens among patients with a particular human disease, have appeared in the medical literature in the last few years. This literary deluge, to which the New England Journal of Medicine has been a notable contributor, has already been reviewed several times.^{1 2 3 4 5} Although some "HLAfficionados" applaud each new association with disease as evidence for etiologic factors involving autoimmune, or at least altered, immune function under specific gene control, interpretations of these associations are not necessarily so simple, and the data are often confusing and contradictory. For these reasons . . .