| Major histocompatibility complex phenotypes influence serum testosterone concentration (2000) | |||||||||||||
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| Objectives. (a) To confirm our earlier observation that the phenotype HLA‐DR4,7 occurs with higher frequency in male patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) than in female patients. (b) To test the hypothesis that DR7 is associated with low normal serum testosterone (Te) levels in healthy males; this might explain the increased frequency of DR4,7 in male patients since there appears to be a relationship between low serum Te and RA. (c) To characterize the association between HLA alleles and serum Te concentration in healthy males. Methods. An additional 82 Newfoundland (NF) RA patients were HLA‐DR typed and, combined with our earlier data and data from the 11th International Histocompatibility Workshop, gave HLA‐DR and sex information on 373 RA patients. Ninety‐four healthy NF males were typed for HLA, the microsatellite marker TNFa (located close to the tumour necrosis factor alpha gene) and complement factor B (BF). An additional 38 males were included, selected partly based on their HLA‐B type. Results. We confirmed our earlier finding of a higher frequency of HLA‐DR4,7 in male RA patients compared with female RA patients (P | |||||||||||||
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