OBJECTIVE: Prospective pharmacogenetic screening for the human leucocyte antigen 
(HLA) B*5701 allele can significantly reduce the number of cases of 
abacavir-related hypersensitivity among HIV-infected patients treated with this 
drug. The aim of this study was to establish the frequency of the HLA B*5701 
variant in HIV-infected Poles.
METHODS: The sequence-specific primer (SSP) test was used to assess the 
feasibility of the introduction of such testing in clinical practice. For this 
purpose, 234 randomly selected HIV-positive patients were screened using a 
low-resolution SSP assay, with HLA B*5701-positive results confirmed using a 
high-resolution test.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The HLA B*5701 variant was found in 11 of 234 subjects 
(4.7%). Testing with the selected method proved quick and reliable.