HLA antigens in ocular cicatricial pemphigoid.

HLA antigen frequencies were studied in 45 patients with ocular cicatricial pemphigoid. HLA-B12 was found to have an increased frequency of 44.4% in patients with ocular cicatricial pemphigoid, which was statistically significant when compared with a frequency of 19.6% in the control population (P less than .001 or P less than .031 when corrected for the number of antigens tested). The results of this study suggest that there is an immunogenetic susceptibility to the development of ocular cicatricial pemphigoid.