Association of HLA-B*51:01 with Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma in the Chinese Han Population of the Shandong Coastal Areas

Background: A lot of work has been done to study the association between human leukocyte antigen (HLA) and papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) in various populations. But the results of the currently available studies are not consistent. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of HLA-A, -B, -C, -DRB1, and -DQB1 with PTC in the Chinese Han population of the coastal areas of Shandong Province with respect to age and sex. Methods: A total of 154 patients diagnosed with PTC were analyzed for HLA-A, -B, -C, -DRB1, and -DQB1 alleles by using a polymerase chain reaction sequence-based typing (PCR-SBT) method. Two hundred unrelated healthy individuals were typed as controls. Results: Compared with the controls, the HLA-B*51:01 (8.8% vs. 4.5%, p=0.029, OR 2.039 [CI 1.101-3.775]) and HLA-C*07:06 (2.6% vs. 0.5%, p=0.024, OR 5.307 [CI 1.119-25.171]) allele frequencies were higher in the PTC patients, while the HLA-C*07:01 (1.3% vs. 6.0%, p=0.001, OR 0.206 [CI 0.071-0.601]) allele frequency was lower in the PTC patients that did not persist after Bonferroni correction for multiple tests. This showed no statistically significant correlation of the HLA-A, -DRB1, and -DQB1 alleles and PTC. The incidence of PTC was more frequent in females between 30 and 60 years old. There were no significant differences in the age and sex distributions between the total and the HLA-B*51:01 positive PTC patients. Conclusions: The HLA associations in this Chinese Han population differ markedly from studies done in Europeans and Caucasians. The results reveal that HLA-B*51:01 is more likely to be a susceptible allele for PTC in addition to age and sex in the coastal areas of Shandong Province.