Anil Kumar Sah, Pragya Hatawal, Sandip Shrestha, Laxmi Sharma, Laxmi Sen Thakuri, Riju Dahal, Shreeya Parajuli, Prabin Nepal, Pravesh Rajbhandari and Basant Pant
Background: Human leucocyte antigens-B27 is products of genes found at
the human major histocompatibility complex class I molecule, associated
with a several rheumatic disease. There is a marked variation of association
between spondyloarthritis and HLA B27 surface antigen. This association
encouraged in testing of HLA-B27 antigen as one of the diagnostic tools
in this inflammatory disease. The study was conducted with the aim to
perform HLA-B27 typing by means of simple allele specific PCR in suspected
spondyloarthritis (SpA) patients.
Methods: The whole blood samples of the suspected SpA patients were
collected from different hospitals and DNA was extracted. HLA-B27 Typing
was performed by sequence specific primer PCR (SSP-PCR).
Results: A total 112 and 25 sample of suspected spondyloarthritis and healthy
population were involved in this study, Out of 112 suspected spondyloarthritis
patients 23.2% (n=26/112) were HLA-B27 positive; similarly in 25 healthy
specimens 4% (n=1/25) were positive for HLA-B27. HLA-B27 were positive
in 69.2% and 30.8% (8/26) in the 15-40 and >40 years age group respectively
(p=0.54), and 76.9% and 23.1% in male and female respectively (p=0.15).
Clinical characteristics; inflammatory low back pain, morning stiffness and
enthesitis of the patient were significantly associated with HLA-B27 Typing
(p<0.05).
Conclusion: Present research output confirmed the significance of HLA-B27
allele as a novel and rapid molecular marker for diagnosis of spondyloarthritis
also in Nepalese patients.