Association of the HLA-DRB1*01 allele with spontaneous viral clearance in an Irish cohort infected with hepatitis C virus via contaminated anti-D immunoglobulin
Section snippets
Study population
One hundred and fifty-seven Irish women referred from 1994 to date from the BTSB were evaluated. All individuals had been previously identified in a“look back” program by the BTSB as having received HCV-infected anti-D immunoglobulin for rhesus incompatibility from infected batches in 1977 (HCV genotype 1) or in 1991 (HCV genotype 3) (17).
The 157 patients were divided into two groups. The first group comprised 73 patients considered to have spontaneous self-limited HCV infection defined as
Results
A total of 157 females who received HCV-contaminated anti-D were typed for HLA DRB1* alleles. Of these, 73 women had spontaneous self-limited HCV infection (Group 1) while 84 had chronic HCV infection (Group 2). A comparison of the main clinical and virological characteristics of individuals in Group 1 and Group 2 are shown in Table 1. Comparisons of HLA DRB1* allele frequency between Group 1 and 2, Group 1 and controls, Group 2 and controls are shown in Table 2, and between the whole
Discussion
In the present study, the influence of HLA Class II DRB1* alleles on disease outcome, in particular viral clearance, was examined in a group of otherwise healthy women who were infected with HCV via contaminated anti-D immunoglobulin. Seventy-three females from this unique cohort had spontaneous viral clearance and this constitutes the largest group with viral clearance to be examined to date for HLA Class II DRB1* allele status. In this study, a significant association was found between the
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge Dr. Derek Middleton of the Northern Ireland Tissue Typing Laboratory who kindly provided data on frequencies of HLA DRB1* alleles in the control population and Ms. Barbara Coughlan for helpful statistical advice.
This research was supported through a project grant from the Health Research Board in Ireland.
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