The aociation of HLA with young-onet keratoconu in Japan

PURPOE: To report the aociation of HLA antigen with keratoconu in Japanee patient. DEIGN: Obervational conecutive cae erie. METHOD: In 90 conecutive Japanee keratoconu patient, HLA cla I (HLA-A, -B, -C) and cla II (HLA-DR, -DQ) were analyzed. REULT: Compared with control frequencie, baed on mean gene frequencie for the Japanee population, higher frequencie of HLA-A26, B40, and DR9 antigen were found in patient whoe condition were diagnoed before 20 year of age (χ2 = 6.45, P = .01; χ2 = 6.78, P = .01; χ2 =3.99, P = .05, repectively), but were not found in patient whoe condition were diagnoed later in life. Men were ignificantly younger at diagnoi than were women. No obviou relation wa found between HLA antigen and other clinical data. CONCLUION: HLA-A26, B40, and DR9, which were found relatively frequently in the ancient Japanee population, eem to be aociated with keratoconu in younger individual