engleski

DISTRIBUTION OF HLA ALLELES AMONG CHILDREN WITH HAEMATOLOGICAL MALIGNANCIES IN CROATIA

It has been reported about association between some haematological malignancies and HLA. The aim of this study was to analyse HLA class I and class II in the group of 134 children (ALL=55 ; Neuroblastoma=32 ; AA=25 ; AML=17 ; CML=5), with mean age of 3.3 yrs. All patients and controls were tested for HLA-A, and – B antigens using MLCT method, while polymorphism at DRB1 was determined by PCR-SSP method. In the group of patients with ALL the most interesting findingwas a significantly lower frequency of B7 antigen (1.7% vs 9.6 ; p=0.003), while rest of HLA specificities were present with similar frequency as in controls. The only difference between children with AA and controls was the absence of allele DRB1*04 (p=0.007). Among patients with neuroblastoma at HLA-B locus, allele B38 (3.1% vs 6.7%) showed lower frequency but without statistical significance, while the difference in frequency for alleles B51 (4.6% vs 12.0% ; p=0.045) and B39 (7.8% vs 1.6% ; p=0.012) reached statistical significance. At DRB1 locus, difference was found for DRB1*0301 (17.1% vs 8.3% ; p=0.027) and DRB1*1201 (6.2% vs 1.4% ; p=0.032). We did not observe any difference in frequency of HLA-A in any of the studied groups in comparison to controls. The results of this study should be considered as preliminary and it is necessary to enlarge a group of patients for final conclusion. It would also be helpful to analyse other HLA loci as well as HLA haplotypes for better drawing of the genetic picture of children’ s haematological malignancies.

HLA; CHILDREN; HAEMATOLOGICAL MALIGNANCIES

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