Association of HLA A3 and HLA B14 antigens with idiopathic haemochromatosis

Abstract

The frequency of HLA A3 and HLA B14 antigens was significantly higher in a series of 51 patients with idiopathic haemochromatosis than in a control group, being respectively 78.4 versus 27.0% and 25.5 versus 3.4%. This finding strongly supports the suggestion that idiopathic haemochromatosis is a genetic disease and suggests that the gene(s) responsible for the disease may be linked to the histocompatibility genes.