[The effect of HLA-DRB4 on the clinical picture of chronic polyarthritis]

61 patients suffering from classic erosive rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with a condition persisting for more than 5 years, were examined together with 69 healthy control subjects with regard to associations to "supertypic" HLA-D specificities. We found a significant increase of HLA-DRw53 in patients with seropositive RA (SPRA) (31/42 patients = 73.8%, Chi 2 = 18.4, p less than 0.01, RR = 7.3). Our results confirm the hypothesis, that the HLA-DRB4 gene is closer related to the disease susceptibility genes of SPRA than of DR4 (DRB1).