The British Journal of Psychiatry 150: 124-127 (1987)
© 1987 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Genetic markers in late paraphrenia: a study of HLA antigens
M Naguib, P McGuffin, R Levy, H Festenstein and A Alonso
University of Wales, College of Medicine.
Patients with late paraphrenia were typed for HLA-A, -B and -C. Increased
frequencies of BW55 (P = 0.036), B37 (P = 0.008) and CW6 (P = 0.056) were
found relative to controls. Unlike findings in paranoid schizophrenia,
there was no HLA-A9 association, suggesting that paraphrenics may be
genetically distinct from schizophrenics. The primary association seems to
be with B37, which has the lowest corrected P value and highest relative
risk; if this were replicated, it would make possession of this antigen a
strong risk factor for developing the disorder.