Association of human antigen class I genes with cold medicine-related Stevens-Johnson syndrome with severe ocular complications in a Korean population.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) are a spectrum of diseases that cause an acute vesiculobullous reaction in the skin and mucous membranes. The occurrence of these diseases is associated with various drugs, a large proportion of which is comprised cold medicines (CM). We try to investigate the association between human leucocyte antigen (HLA) class I genes and CM-related SJS/TEN (CM-SJS/TEN) with severe ocular complications (SOC) in the Korean population.

METHODS

This multicentre case-control study enrolled 40 Korean patients with CM-SJS/TEN with SOC and 120 age-matched and sex-matched Korean healthy volunteers between January 2012 and May 2014. HLA genotyping was performed using PCR followed by hybridisation with sequence-specific oligonucleotide probes.

RESULTS

The carrier frequency and gene frequency of HLA-A*02:06 were 37.5 % and 20.0 %, respectively, in patients, and 16.7 % and 9.6 %, respectively, in controls (p=0.018). The carrier frequency of HLA-C*03:04 was 30 % in patients and 10.8 % in controls, and gene frequency of HLA-C*03:04 was 15 % in patients and 5.4 % in controls (p=0.003). The carrier frequency and gene frequency of HLA-C*03:03 were 2.5 % and 1.3 %, respectively, in patients, and 20 % and 10.4 %, respectively, in controls (p=0.006).

CONCLUSIONS

As per our results, we suggest that HLA-A*02:06 and HLA-C*03:04 might be positive markers for CM-SJS/TEN with SOC, and HLA-C*03:03 might be an indicator of protection against CM-SJS/TEN with SOC in the Korean population.