Relationship between human leukocyte antigen status and proliferative diabetic retinopathy in patients with younger-onset type 1 diabetes mellitus.

Abstract

To investigate the relationship between human leukocyte antigen (HLA) status and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) to assess the genetic basis of PDR in younger type 1 diabetic patients. Retrospective, nonrandomized, comparative trial. Patients who were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes under 30 years of age (range, 13-28) and had a disease duration of more than 10 years were studied. The patients were divided into two groups: 30 patients who had undergone vitreous surgery younger than 40 years old (the PDR group) and 50 patients without retinopathy (the non-DR group). The duration of diabetes and the level of glycemic control were matched between the two groups. The control group consisted of 50 healthy patients. HLA-A, -B, -C, -DR, and -DQ typing of blood samples was done using the standard microcytotoxicity method. The frequency of HLA-B62, Cw4, and DQ4 was significantly higher in the PDR group than in the non-DR group (P =.0020, P =.048, and P =.0026, respectively). The Cw4-DR4-DQ4 haplotype frequency was significantly higher in the PDR group than in the control group and the non-DR group (P =.0059). Our results suggests that HLA-B62, Cw4, and DQ4 may be useful for predicting the prognosis of retinopathy in patients with younger-onset type 1 diabetes.