KARYOTYPICALLY NORMAL SPONTANEOUS PREMATURE OVARIAN FAILURE - EVALUATION OF ASSOCIATION WITH THE CLASS-II MAJOR HISTOCOMPATIBILITY COMPLEX

Patients with premature ovarian failure (POF) have been reported to ha ve an increased frequency of the major histocompatibily class (MHC) cl ass II antigen HLA-DR3. Here we attempt to confirm this association. W e performed MHC class II immunophenotyping of HLA-DR antigens 1-10 on 102 North American caucasians with confirmed POF and 102 control cauca sian women. All patients had experienced amenorrhea before the age of 40 yr and had elevated serum gonadotropins on repeated study. We found no significant increase in HLA-DR3 frequency in patients with POF whe n compared to our control group (P = 0.52) or even when compared to a large reference population (n = 1927) that did not differ significantl y from our control group (P = 0.47). Our patients did have an increase d frequency of HLA DR4 compared to this large reference population (41 % vs. 23%; P < 0.001), but we were unable to demostrate increased HLA DR4 frequency using our control group (31%; P = 0.14). In conclusion, despite a power of 99%, we were unable to confirm a significant increa se in MHC class II HLA-DR3 frequency in patients with POF.