ABSTRACT
Advances in Inflammatory Bowel diseases [IBD] genetics hold the potential to provide knowledge about the disease pathogenesis at the molecular level, with ensuring benefits for clinical practice. The association between ulcerative colitis and human leukocyte antigens [HLA] typing varies from race to race. In an attempt to clarify the association between HLA typing and ulcerative colitis in Egypt this study was performed on 30 patients with ulcerative colitis, 50 healthy volunteers were taken as controls, all patients subjected to full clinical examination and investigated with, sigmoidoscopy, rectal biopsy, barium enema and examination of faeces, determination of HLA type was done for patients and controls. The study revealed that patients with ulcerative colitis have significant frequencies of HLA-A25-26 and HLA-B13 as compared to controls [50%, 50%and 55%vs7.3, 7.3 and 10.6 respectively, p<0.05]. Their relative risks are significantly high [12.69,12.69 and 10.3 respectively,p<0.05]. We conclude that HLA typing provides a useful non-invasive diagnostic modality for ulcerative colitis in Egypt. However, this needs to be verified on a large scale