ASSOCIATION OF HUMAN-LEUKOCYTE ANTIGEN PHENOTYPE WITH VACCINE EFFICACY IN PATIENTS RECEIVING VAGINAL MUCOSAL IMMUNIZATION FOR RECURRENT URINARY-TRACT INFECTION

Immune responses to specific antigens can be influenced by an individu al's genetic make-up. We examined whether the efficacy of a vaginal mu cosal vaccine for urinary tract infections (UTI) was affected by a pat ient's human leucocyte antigen (HLA) phenotype, Urinary tract infectio n data and the HLA phenotypes of 47 women participating in a phase II clinical trial of immunization for recurrent UTI were statistically an alysed for associations between HLA-A, -B, -DR, or -DQ phenotype and p ostimmunization infection course. Women who received the vaccine and h ad HLA-DR phenotypes other than DR2 had significantly delayed times to re-infection compared with women receiving placebo. Vaccine-treated p atients with the HLA-DR2 phenotype had re-infection courses that were not different than women receiving placebo. These results indicate tha t the efficacy of a vaginal mucosal UTI vaccine may be influenced by a n individual's HLA-DR phenotype. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All ri ghts reserved.