HLA antigens and Berger's disease.

We have studied the frequencies of HLA-A, -B antigens in 73 Berger's disease patients, plus HLA-DR antigens in 35 of them, and compared the percentages of antigens frequencies with those of a local and national panel. This study does not confirm the positive associations with HLA-Bw35 or HLA-B12 which have been previously reported. The HLA-DR typing only showed increased frequency of blanks in the patients (P smaller than 0.01, but no significant corr.P). Patients with Berger's disease and renal failure have a higher (but still not significant) HLA-Bw35 frequency than those without renal failure. The reasons for the discrepancy between our group and others are analysed.