[HLA A-B and DR in dilated myocardiopathies].

HLA A, B typing was performed in 90 patients (90 men, 10 women), and HLA DR typing in 49 patients with dilated cardiomyopathy in order to test the hypothesis that a particular genetic background may influence the immune response in that disease. No significant difference in phenotype frequency of the HLA A and B antigens was observed between patients and control population. In contrast, the HLA DR4 antigen was significantly more frequent among patients (40.8% vs 23.8%, p corrected less than 0.001). The results suggest that genetic factors play a role in the pathogenesis of dilated cardiomyopathy, and that since DR4 is frequently associated with auto-immune manifestations, a modified immune response is possible in dilated cardiomyopathy.