The association of the HLA in patients with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and in their biological relatives

To determine the association of the HLA in 50 patients with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, 48 healthy controls, 41 biological relatives without psychiatric disease, and 48 biological relatives with mood disorder, the HLA genotype at the class I and class II were determined. The subjects were interviewed by structured diagnostic criteria categorized according to DSM-IV, axis I, (SCID-IV). Significant positive association was found with HLA-B*15 in patients, family with humor disorder and without mental disorder (p = 0.003) and negative association of the HLA-B*35 in relatives without psychiatric disease (p = 0.03). The HLA-B*15 frequency was significantly increased in a subgroup of patients with age at onset in the early 20s, lower educational achievement, occupational disability, chronically ill, more paranoid type. These findings suggest the existence of some involvement of an immunogenetic mechanism in a subgroup of schizophrenic, schizoaffective patients, and biological relatives.