HLA antigens in alcoholics, with special reference to alcoholic cirrhosis.

HLA antigen determination showed that the frequency of HLA-B40 was significantly increased (49%) in 43 patients with alcoholic cirrhosis, compared with the frequency found in 234 healthy blood donors (18%). The HLA-B40 frequency was not increased in three other patient groups: 36 patients with alcoholic liver disease without cirrhosis (14%), 21 patients with miscellaneous liver disease (24%), and 26 alcoholics without liver disease (24%). We could not confirm the previously reported association between advanced alcoholic liver damage and HLA-B8, which has been taken as support for the relation to autoimmune mechanisms. The association with HLA-B40, however, favours the idea that genetically determined individual susceptibility to alcoholic liver cirrhosis may exist.