Evaluation of clinical and immunogenetic risk factors for the development of hepatotoxicity during antituberculosis treatment

Though several risk factors for the development of hepatotoxicity due to antituberculosis drugs have been suggested, involvement of genetic factors is not fully established. We have studied the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class 11 alleles and clinical risk factors for the development of hepatotoxicity in 346 North Indian patients with tuberculosis undergoing antituberculosis treatment. Of these, 56 patients developed drug-induced hepatotoxicity (DIH group), whereas the remaining 290 patients did not (non-DIH group). The DIH group was comparatively older, had lower pretreatment serum albumin, and a higher frequency of moderately/far advanced disease radiographically than the latter. Further, patients with high alcohol intake had threefold higher odds of developing hepatotoxicity. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, older age (odds ratio [OR] 1.2), moderately/far advanced disease (OR 2.0), serum albumin < 3.5 g/dl (OR 2.3), absence of HLA-DQA1*0102 (OR 4.0), and presence of HLA-DQB1*0201 (OR 1.9) were independent risk factors for DIH. Our results suggest that the risk of hepatotoxicity from antituberculosis drugs is influenced by clinical and genetic factors.