Histocompatibility antigens in patients with leprosy from Azarbaijan, Iran.

The distribution of 24 histocompatibility antigens in 88 Azerbaijani patients with leprosy was determined and compared with those of 125 normal, ethnically matched individuals. HLA-BW35 was increased in frequency among the Kurdish patients as compared to the controls; HLA-A1, however, displayed decreased frequency in patients with the lepromatous form of the disease. Among the Turks, diminished frequency of HLA-BW15 was noted in the total patient population. None of these comparisons, however, reached statistical significance when corrected for the number of antigens tested. Across the two ethnic groups, differences in the frequencies of HLA antigens between the patients and the controls were only marginal.