Familial Mediterranean fever: No association of HLA with amyloidosis or colchicine treatment response

The object of the present study was to look for a possible genetic predisposition associated with HLA, or a predictive value of HLA typing with regard to the complicated variants of FMF. No statistically significant differences were found in antigen frequencies of any of the HLA A, B, C and DR antigens, either between the groups of patients or in comparison with matched, healthy controls. In the group that developed amyloidosis prior to prophylactic colchicine treatment, HLA-A1 antigen frequency was reduced, but the differences were not statistically significant. In the favorably responding group (Group 1), DR-5 was higher than in Groups 2 or 3 (60 vs. 46 and 27.8%, respectively; relative risks 1.75 and 3.9). The frequency of B-27 was very low in all three groups.