HLA typing in Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada syndrome in North Indian patients.

Purpose: To report the HLA profile of VKH patients from India.

Method: Forty-one patients and 50 controls were studied. Phenotyping using a lymphocytotoxicity assay was done for HLA-A and -B. DNA-based sequence-specific low resolution typing was done for HLA-DR and -DQ loci.

Results: HLA-A9 was over-represented in the patient population (p = 0.01), whereas HLA-A11 (p = 0.03) and HLA-DRB1*13 (p = 0.007) were found to be underrepresented. The frequency of HLA-DRB1*04 was 14.6% and 10% in the patient population and controls, respectively. The HLA-DQ frequencies did not differ significantly between patients and controls.

Conclusion: Unlike that reported in most populations, we did not find a significant association between HLA-DRB1*04 and our patient population.