45 patients of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) (mean disease duration = 7 years, 82% seropositive RF, 72% radiologically erosive, 67% extra-articular disease) satisfying the ARA 1987 classification criteria for diagnosis, and belonging to the Hindu Community, were randomly chosen from a large cohort of RA patients in a drug trial and evaluated for their HLA DR profiles, subtyping was done for HLA DR4 positive individuals, 21 individuals, mostly asymptomatic for any significant illness, from the same Hindu population were chosen as controls. The HLA DR typing was done using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique and sequence specific oligonucleotides.

        HLA DR 4, 1 and 10 were present in 18%, 13% and 36% patients respectively. The individual associations of none of the latter antigens with RA when compared to the controls were statistically significant at p<0.05; HLA DR 10 seems to have a better association with RA. However, the occurrence of either of the HLA DR 1, 4 and 10 in patients with RA is 56% as compared to 14% in the controls (p<0.05; corrected chisquare). The current results are conspicuously different from those reported by Taneja et al (1982, 1992) in patient of RA belonging ethnically to either North India or South India. The current results also differ from those recently described by Modi et al (1994) from South Africa while studying patients of RA belonging to Hindu (North Indian stock), Tamilians and Muslim community. The probably inherent ethnic diversity of the Indian population, and further complicated by population migrations over centuries of existence, makes it difficult if not impossible to draw any firm and universal conclusions regarding HLA distribution both in patients and controls evaluated in different RA studies.

Keywords

Immunogenetics, HLA typing, Rheumatoid arthritis