Leukemia Research, vol.26, no.7, pp.651-656, 2002 (SCI-Expanded)
Previous studies reported significant HLA-DR associations with various leukemias one of which is with HLA-DRB4 (DR53) family in male patients with childhood ALL. We have HLA-DR-typed 212 high-risk or relapsed patients with childhood (n = 114) and adult (n = 98) ALL and a total of 250 healthy controls (118 children, 132 adult) by PCR-SSP analysis. The members of the HLA-DRB3 (DR52) family were underrepresented in patients most significantly for HLA-DRB1*12 (P = 0.0007) and HLA-DRB1*13 (P = 0.0001). In childhood ALL, the protective effect of DRB3 was evident in homozygous form (P = 0.001). The DRB4 marker frequency was increased in males with childhood ALL (67.4%) compared to age- and sex-matched controls (42.1%, P = 0.003) and female patients (35.7%, P = 0.004). Besides being a general marker for increased susceptibility to childhood ALL in males, HLA-DRB4 is over-represented in high-risk patients. These results further suggest that the HLA system is one of the components of genetic susceptibility to leukemia but mainly in childhood and in boys only. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.