HLA class I and II alleles are shown to be associated with certain diseases. A restricted numbers of alleles were found to be related to alloimmunisation in thalassemia population. The role of human leucocyte antigens in thalassemia is trend topic. In this study, the aim was to evaluate the differences in HLA frequencies of beta thalassemia patients comparing with healthy controls.

The data were collected of 100 patients who were diagnosed with beta thalassemia and 100 healthy controls were included in the study. The low resolution HLA-A, -B, -DRB1, tissue group data were performed Istanbul University, Faculty of Medicine, Medical Biology Department HLA typing laboratory. All data were analyzed retrospectively and their HLA allele frequencies were analyzed by SPSS (v22) program.

We found an increased frequency of HLA-B*14 (8% versus 2%) and HLA-B*52 (17% versus 2%) compared to the control group (p=0.05, OR=4.26; p<0.01, OR=10.03). On the other hand, HLA-B*13 frequency was decreased in thalassemia patients (5% versus 13%, p=0.04, OR=0.35). Other HLA-A, -B and -DRB1 allele frequency was similar with healthy controls.

Our results showed that HLA-B*14 and -B*52 allele were associated with beta thalassemia in Turkish population. Several studies found that HLA-DRB1*15 and DRB1*11 were associated with alloimmunisation in thalassemia. Other some studies showed DRB1*07 and chronic infection relation in patients with thalassemia. We found HLA-B certain alleles difference in thalassemia patients which may yield a challenge in finding the matched donor in our population.