A European study of HLA-B in Stevens–Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis related to five high-risk drugs

Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and its severe form, toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN), are rare but life-threatening cutaneous adverse reactions to drugs, especially to allopurinol, carbamazepine, lamotrigine, phenobarbital, phenytoine, sulfamethoxazole, oxicam and nevirapine. Recently, a strong association between carbamazepine and allopurinol induced SJS or TEN has been described with respectively, HLA-B*1502 and HLA-B*5801 in a Han Chinese population from Taiwan and other Asian countries.

The objective is to further investigate the relationship between SJS/TEN and HLA-B in a large number of patients in a European population.