Purpose: The pathogenesis of Peyronie's disease remains unclear. Previous studies have described possible associations among various HLAs and Peyronie's disease. However, only small series comprising 9 to 52 patients were analyzed in these studies and published results are controversial. We prospectively investigated a possible association of Peyronie's disease with HLA classes I and II specificity in a large patient group.
Materials and methods: A total of 154 consecutive patients with Peyronie's disease were typed serologically for HLA class I antigens. Molecular typing of HLA class II alleles was performed by polymerase chain reaction sequence specific primers. Results were compared with those in healthy bone marrow donors for HLA classes I (2,450) and II (316), serving as representative controls selected from the local population. In addition, HLA distribution in a German normal cohort of 14,835 individuals served as a control.
Results: No significant difference in HLA classes I and II antigen frequency was evident in patients with Peyronie's disease compared with healthy controls.
Conclusions: The results of this study do not indicate any significant association between Peyronie's disease and antigens of the HLA system.