Incidence of Rodgers-negative individuals in systemic lupus erythematosus patients

Early reports of anti-Rodgers (anti-Rg) noted that there was an increased number of the HLA-B8 phenotype among this group. This HLA type has recently been linked to a C4A (Rg) gene deletion found with increased frequency among systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients. Healthy controls (n=176) and SLE patients (n=102) were studied for their HLA haplotype and C4 allotype as well as their Rg phenotype Six of 53 white and 3 of 49 black SLE patients were C44-null and Rodgers-negative, a significant difference from controls (p = .002). A retrospective study of patients who produced anti-Rg showed that one third had symptoms often associated with SLE but none had SLE as a primary diagnosis.