[Investigation of HLA in patients with glioma]

HLA was studied in 35 patients with gliomas (20 anaplastic gliomas, 11 astrocytomas, 2 ependymomas, 2 oligodendrogliomas) and 38 volunteers who served as controls, by using the microdroplet lymphocyte cytotoxicity test. Phenotype frequency (PF), gene frequency (GF) and relative risk (RR) of each HLA antigen were studied statistically with the chi 2-test, where corrected P (CP) less than 0.05 was considered significant. Concerning HLA-B antigens, either Bw 61 or Bw 62 was found in 45.7% of the patients and the both in 14.3%. HLA-Bw 61 had a tendency to increase in the patients (PF = 0.46, GF = 0.27, RR = 7.16, chi 2 = 9.64, P less than 0.002, CP less than 0.064). Contrary to HLA-B antigens, HLA-DRw 6 was absent in the patient (chi 2 = 8.3379, P less than 0.004, CP less than 0.04). No relation between HLA and histological types was found. HLA has its genetic locus on the short brachium of the 6th chromosome and complement C2, C4, properdin, etc are considered to link HLA. Immunoregulatory genes (Ir genes), immunosuppressive genes (Is genes), disease susceptibility genes and disease resistant genes are also considered to link HLA, especially HLA-B, D loci. Although diseases are multifactorial, according to our report, the incidence of HLA-Bw 61 is higher, while that of HLA-DRw 6 is lower in patients with glioma. These phenomena seem very interesting considering the previous evidence that HLA has a close relation between disease susceptibility and immunological competence.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)