Neonatal lupus in twins.

Neonatal lupus erythematosus (NLE) is a syndrome characterized by one or all of the following elements: cutaneous LE lesions, systemic disease, and congenital heart block. SS-A/Ro and SS-B/La have been implicated in the etiology of NLE, but because NLE is not uniformly manifested in all offspring of SS-A and SS-B autoantibody positive mothers, and because of the wide range of clinical manifestations associated with NLE, other contributing etiologic factors are being explored. HLA studies have revealed that infants of SS-A/Ro and SS-B/La positive mothers bearing HLA-A1, B8, DR3, DQ2, and DR52 are at greater risk of having NLE. Haplotyping in our dizygous twins supports these material HLA associations.