BACKGROUND: Although the US FDA recommends screening for HLA-B*1502 allele in 
most of Asian ancestry before initiating carbamazepine therapy, the HLA 
associations with carbamazepine hypersensitivity in non-Chinese Asian 
populations remain unclear. This study investigated the association between the 
HLA class I genotype and carbamazepine-induced severe cutaneous adverse reaction 
(SCAR) in Koreans.
METHODS: Twenty-four patients who had developed carbamazepine-induced SCAR (7 
Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS), 17 drug hypersensitivity syndrome (HSS)), 50 
carbamazepine-tolerant controls from the Korean Pharmacogenetic Adverse Drug 
Reaction Research Network and data of 485 Korean general population from a 
previously published study were recruited. HLA-A, -B, and -C genotyping was 
performed by direct DNA sequence analysis.
RESULTS: Only one of the seven SJS patients was positive for the B*1502 allele, 
but the frequency of B*1511 was much higher in the patients with CBZ-SJS than in 
the CBZ-tolerant control patients (P=0.011, P(c)=not significant; 
OR=18.0(2.3-141.2)). The frequencies of A*3101 in carbamazepine-induced HSS and 
SCAR were significantly higher than those in carbamazepine-tolerant controls 
(P(c)=0.011, OR=8.8(2.5-30.7) and P(c)=0.013, OR=7.3(2.3-22.5), respectively). 
The frequencies of B*1511 in carbamazepine-SJS and A*3101 in 
carbamazepine-HSS/SCAR were significantly higher than those in the general 
population.
CONCLUSIONS: HLA-B*1502 does not seem to be an effective predictive marker for 
carbamazepine-induced SCAR, while HLA-B*1511 and A*3101 was associated with 
carbamazepine-induced SJS and HSS/SCAR respectively in the Korean population.