An Association of HL‐A3 and HL‐A7 with Paralytic Poliomyelitis

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The frequency of 22 HL‐A antigens in 111 patients who had had paralytic poliomyelitis in past epidemics was compared to the frequency of the same antigens in 395 blood donors. There was a significant increase of HL‐A3 and HL‐A7 in the polio patients (P < 0.02, P < 0.002, respectively, after the application of a correction factor for the number of comparisons). It is suggested that this association might represent an association between HL‐A and an immune response gene determining an immune response to the virus or a product of viral infection of the central nervous system. As the frequency of HL‐A3 and HL‐A7 has been found to be increased in studies of multiple sclerosis, a similar aetiological mechanism might be responsible for both diseases.

May link HL-A3/HL-A7 to paralytic polio susceptibility; hypothesis-generating and should not change practice.