Lamotrigine (LTG) is a commonly used antiepileptic drug. However, the use of LTG 
is limited because of its cutaneous adverse drug reactions (cADRs) ranging from 
mild maculopapular eruption (MPE) to severe Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and 
toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). A strong association between HLA-B*1502 and 
carbamazepine-induced SJS/TEN has been identified in Chinese and Thai. Although 
three of seven cases with HLA-B*1502 have been reported in LTG-induced SJS/TEN 
so far, the relationship between HLA-B*1502 and LTG-induced SJS/TEN needs 
further investigation. It is also unclear whether there is a specific genetic 
marker associated with LTG-induced MPE in Chinese. In this study, we genotyped 
43 Han Chinese patients treated with LTG (14 cases with LTG-induced cADRs and 29 
LTG-tolerant controls), using PCR-SSP for HLA-B*1502 testing and low-resolution 
genotyping, as well as sequencing for four-digit genotyping. The two cases with 
SJS were negative for HLA-B*1502, with B1301/1301 and 4601/5610, respectively. 
Combining the data with previous studies, there was no significant difference in 
the frequency of subjects with HLA-B*1502 between the LTG-induced SJS/TEN group 
and the LTG-tolerant group (p = 0.08, OR 4.23, 95% CI 0.94-18.97). In the MPE 
group, only one was positive for HLA-B*1502. There was no significant difference 
in the frequency of a specific HLA-B allele between the MPE group and the 
LTG-tolerant group either. In this study, no significant association between 
HLA-B*1502 and LTG-induced SJS or MPE was found. Given the small sample size and 
only HLA-B locus genotyping, further large-scale studies are required to explore 
genetic associations with LTG-induced cADRs.