THE TYPE-1 DIABETES AND HLA-DR IN TURKEY

Studies of various insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) populations have shown that certain HLA antigens confer a high risk of developing disease. There is very little information concerning the distribution of HLA antigens in type 1 diabetes in the Turkish population. In this study, the HLA types of 75 patients and 50 controls were investigated. HLA-DR3 and HLA-DR4 were found more frequently in the IDDM cases (p = 0.0018 and 0.0119, respectively). DR3/DR4, although more frequent, did not achieve statistical significance. The decreased frequencies of DR1 and DR2 in the IDDM population were not significant whereas the DR7 was found to be significantly decreased (p = 0.025). The younger age of onset was strongly associated with DR4 (p = 0.0029). DR3 was more common among the male and DR4 in the female patients. However, the differences were not significant.