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The frequency of certain HLA class II alleles has been reported to be high in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc), especially in the clinical subsets defined by SSc related antinuclear antibodies and ethnicity.1 ,2 In anticentromere antibody (ACA) positive SSc, a high frequency of HLA-DQB1*0501 has been reported by some investigators.1 In addition, we found a high frequency of DRB1*0101 in ACA positive Japanese patients with SSc (J Rheumatol, in press).
ACA is also found in patients with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC),3 and patients with SSc and ACA commonly overlap PBC or Sjögren's syndrome (SS), or both.4 Some studies on HLA class II alleles in Japanese patients with PBC showed high frequencies of DRB1*0803 and DPB1*0501.5 However, we found no reports which analysed HLA class II alleles in patients with PBC with respect to the relation with ACA or SSc.
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Footnotes
This study was partly supported by grants from Kanzawa Medical Research Foundation (1999) and a Scleroderma Grant for Intractable Disease from the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare (1999).