Histocompatibility antigens in asthma: population and family studies.

One hundred and twenty-two patients with intrinsic asthma, extrinsic atopic asthma, or asthma with allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis were tissue typed for the HLA A, B, and C loci. No associations were found with any of the clinical groups, or with serum total IgE concentrations. Sixty-eight members of 10 families where more than one member was affected by asthma were studied. The segregation of haplotypes in siblings of the propositi who were or were not affected by asthma did not differ from the predicted segregation, and there were no differences when atopy or serum total IgE were considered. No biologically important association between HLA and asthma has been shown.