HLA-DP antigens in patients with chronic autoimmune thrombocytopenia (AITP).

AITP, a disease with well-defined autoimmune character, has been previously studied for a possible HLA association. However, no such association with antigens of the A, B, C or DR loci was found. As this does not exclude a possible association with HLA-DP antigens, we have investigated 36 patients with AITP for DP w1, w2, w3, w4 and w5 by primed lymphocyte typing using locally derived as well as the original DP reagents as used in the 9th International Histocompatibility Workshop. Comparison of antigen frequencies with those of 254 healthy controls revealed an increased frequency of DPw5 in the patient group which, however, was not statistically significant. Other discrepancies were not observed.