HLA and thyrotoxic periodic paralysis in Japanese patients

Periodic paralysis (PP) is a well recognized although rare and peculiar complication of thyrotoxicosis, especially among Chinese and Japanese patients. The susceptibility to autoimmune thyroid disease has recently been reported to be strongly linked to certain immunogenetic factors, and increased frequency of certain HLA antigens has been found in patients with Graves' disease. This study was, therefore, undertaken to determine HLA haplotypes in Japanese men with thyrotoxic periodic paralysis (TPP). HLA typing in 35 TPP patients and 263 normal men and women demonstrated highly significant increases (P less than 0.01) in HLA-A2, Cw3, and DRw8 in the TPP patients. In comparing TPP patients with thyrotoxic men who did not have PP, the frequency of DRw8 antigen was 2.5-fold greater in patients with PP than in those without it (62.8% vs. 28.6%). The data suggest that the HLA-DRw8 gene itself may play a significant role in the susceptibility to TPP among Japanese men.