Human leukocyte antigens class II genes are associated with cancer development in the autoimmune rheumatic diseases

Objective. To t vb determine the association between HLA class II alleles and the probability of developing cancer in patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases. Material and methods. A a r . matched case control study was conducted in which patients with autoimmune rheumatic disease who later developed malignancy (solid or lymphoproliferative) were compared with matched controls suffering from the same auto-immune rheumatic disease and with similar disease duration. The rheumatic diseases included rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, primary Sjögren syndrome, dermatomyositis-polymyositis, and systemic sclerosis. HLA-DR typing was performed by sequence-specific primers after DNA amplification by PCR (PCR-SSP). Statistical analysis was conducted by conditional logistic regression.