[Association of HLA antigens with thyrotoxic periodic paralysis]

Periodic paralysis is a rare and peculiar complication of thyrotoxicosis, especially in Chinese and Japanese patients. The susceptibility to autoimmune thyroid disease has recently been reported to be strongly linked with certain immunogenetic factors. The objective of this study was to seek a genetic marker by HLA typing in Chinese patients with thyrotoxic periodic paralysis (TPP). The distribution of HLA-A, B, C, DR and DQ antigens in 20 thyrotoxic patients with periodic paralysis and 51 thyrotoxic patients without periodic paralysis was compared with that in 100 controls. The results showed that among the patients with TPP, these was a highly significantly increase of HLA-B51 frequency and B51 appeared to be linked with Cw3 in a state of dysequilibrium.