[The HLA-DR phenotype in Croatian children with gluten enteropathy]

Several studies of HLA and gluten enteropathy (GE) in European countries have found an association between this disease and certain DR phenotypes. However, no studies of DR phenotypes have been published in GE coming from Croatia. Therefore, we have studied HLA-A, B and DR specificities in 94 unrelated children with GE and in a group of healthy controls. In GE there was significant increase in the frequencies of A1 (61.70% v 24.50%; p < 0.0001) and B8 antigen (70.21% v 20.51%; p < 0.0001) compared with controls. The most frequent DR antigen was HLA-DR3 (87.23% v 18.82% in controls) with the relative risk of 29.65. The distribution of DR phenotypes in GE showed that the most frequent one was DR3/other DR (54.26%) and in decreasing order DR3/DR7 (17.02%), DR3/X (15.96%) and DR5/DR7 (8.51%). These phenotypes account for 95.75% of patients studied. A further 3.19% have DR4/DR5 phenotype. However, due to the frequency of certain antigen in controls, only phenotypes DR3/DR7 (relative risk: 28.92), DR3/X (relative risk: 13.29) and DR3/ other DR (relative risk: 10.04) were significantly associated with GE. The present study emphasizes the importance of studying the HLA-DR phenotypes in patients with GE.