Our findings suggested that patients with AA genotype in the HLA-DQA1/DRB1 gene or cirrhosis should be carefully followed up as a population potentially at higher risk of HCC during ETV treatment.
Lastly, no significant associations were detected between specific DRB1 alleles and relevant clinical features represented by the presence of cirrhosis or serum autoantibodies.
Patients with DRB1*03-DRB1*04 who had 3-4 alleles encoding lysine at position DRbeta71 within the class II molecule of the major histocompatibility complex developed cirrhosis more commonly (75% vs 9%, P = 0.05) and had a higher frequency of hepatic-related death or liver transplantation (40% vs 0%, P = 0.04) than patients with fewer alleles.
A11, B51, Cw15, and DRB1*15 were positively correlated with sustained response, whereas A24 was inversely associated with response to IFN-alpha, after adjustment for cirrhosis, pretreatment virus load, and viral genotype.
Patients with cirrhosis were older than those without (56+/-12 vs. 46+/-14 years; P<10-4) and had a lower DRB1*11 allele frequency (5.6% vs. 14.5%; P=.037), whereas DRB1*03 and DQB1*0201 frequencies appeared to be higher (DRB1*03, 18.1% vs. 9.6%; DQB1*0201, 37.5% vs. 23.4%; P=.04, corrected P value is not significant).