HLA antigen (A & B loci) frequency in Addisonian pernicious anaemia

Sixty-six patients with Addisonian pernicious anaemia have been HLA typed and compared with 86 controls of the same ethnic group. No deviation in antigen frequency was found to be specific for the disease group as a whole. The most significant deviation found was an increased frequency of HLA-B8 in those patients with coincident thyroid autoantibodies. Pernicious anaemia seems to be the exception to the demonstrated association between HLA-B8 and the organ specific autoimmune diseases studied up to the present time.