HLA-A,B,C and DR antigens in Chinese with non-insulin-dependent diabetes: comparison with goitrous diabetics.

To examine the relationship between HLA antigens and Type 2 non-insulin-dependent diabetes (NIDDM), 72 patients were studied and compared with 282 controls. Twenty of 72 patients had an associated non-toxic goiter. The clinical features of the goitrous diabetic patients were similar to those without goiter except that those with goiter were predominantly female (95%). Of the 46 antigens assayed, only A10 was increased in the 72 diabetics when compared with the controls (12.5 vs 5.7%, RR = 2.37, chi 2 = 4.07, p less than 0.05), but statistically this was not significant after p value correction. In the patients with goiter, antigens A2, A9, A10, B27, BW46, CW1, DR1, DR5, DR8, DRW9 showed 2 folds or greater differences in frequencies when compared to the non-goitrous diabetics. However, only A2 had a significant decrease in the former as compared with the latter (30.0 vs 59.6%, chi 2 = 5.07, p less than 0.05), but this was also statistically insignificant. The present study showed no significant HLA associations in Chinese NIDDM patients with or without non-toxic goiter, and the distribution of each antigen was not related to the presence or absence of goiter.