Histocompatibility testing in patients with carcinoma of the bladder

A number of disease states have been found to have a positive association with certain HLA antigens. Weak associations have been described for a number of cancers. Seventy patients with transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder underwent serotyping for HLA, A, B, C, and DR antigens. There were 54 men and 16 women patients with a mean age of 65.3 years. Noninvasive lesions (Ta and T1) were present in 50 and 20 were invasive (T2, T3, and T4). Low grade tumors (G1 and G4) were found in 53 and 17 were moderately or poorly differentiated (G3 and G4). Gene frequencies for the HLA determinants in the cancer patients were compared to those for normal English caucasoids. No significant differences were found at either the A, B, C, or DR loci. DR4 was the commonest antigen expressed in bladder cancer patients with an allelic frequency of 39% compared to 28% in the normal population. The presence or absence of the DR4 antigen was not related to the stage or grade of the tumor.