Abstract
Background and Objective: Amongst the most common causes of hepatitis are viral agents, of which HBV, with regard to its variety of transmission and disease progression, seems to be the most important. HBV infection may result in chronic hepatitis and carrier states in those patients that their immune system failes in virus clearance. Histocompatiblility antigens (HLA) are associated with many infectious and noninfectious diseases and play an important role in immune response and outcome of disease, progression, prognosis, and response to therapy and also susceptibility to disease or protection against it. In this situation the role of cytotoxic T lymphocyte is essential in the control of B hepatitis. These lymphocytes identify virus antigens with HLA class І and eliminate infected hepatocytes.
Materials and Methods: In a case control study 50 patients who were HBsAg positive and more than 16 years old and 50 healthy individuals as control group were selected. Patients who were referred to the hepatitis clinic of Tabriz University Of Medical Sciences (Sina Hospital) whose HBsAg were positive for more than 6 months enrolled in our study. Control group matched with patients regarding to the age, sex and socioeconomic states. Sera from patients were sent to immunology laboratory to determine HLA class І antigens. The data of this case-control study was evaluated by chi-square test, using the statistical package of social science (SPSS, INC. Chicago, IL) with P.value <0.05 as significantly.
Results: An increase of frequency HLA-B38 (p<0.0005), HLA-CW7 (p<0.003), and a decrease of frequency in HLA-B35 (p<0.004), HLA-CW4 (p<0.016), HLA-BW4 (0.004), were detected in HBsAg positive patients in comparison with control group. Correlation of HLA-A2 and HLA-A3 with chronicity of HBV infection was observed.
Conclusion: We noticed that, HLA have an important role in immune response and can be related with chronicity in B hepatitis.