Malignant hypertension and HLA antigens

Abstract
Patients (32) with malignant hypertension and terminal uremia and a group of 1263 healthy blood donors were studied regarding the incidence of different HLA antigens. HLA-Bw35; Cw4 antigens were significantly more frequent in the group of patients with malignant hypertension than in the group of healthy indivdiuals. The frequency of HLA-Bw35 in a group of 60 non-uremic patients with biopsy-proven glomerulonephritis and without malignant hypertension was also studied and found equal to the group of healthy blood donors. There was no overrepresentation of IgA nephritis among the HLA-Bw35 positive patients with glomerulonephritis, but advanced vascular lesions were more common among these than among patients with other HLA antigens.