AIM: To probe into the genetic susceptibility of HLA-DRB1 alleles to esophageal carcinoma in Han Chinese in Hubei Province.METHODS: HLA-DRB1 allele polymorphisms were typed by polymerase chain reaction with sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP) in 42 unrelated patients with esophageal cancer and 136 unrelated normal control subjects and the associated HLA-DRB1 allele was measured by nucleotide sequence analysis with PCR.SAS software was used in statistics.RESULTS: Allele frequency (AF) of HLA-DRB1·0901 was significantly higher in esophageal carcinoma patients than that in the normal controls (0.2500 vs0.1397, P=0.028, the odds ratio 2.053, etiologic fraction 0.1282). After analyzed the allele nucleotide sequence of HLA-DRB1·0901 which approachs to the corresponded exon 2 sequence of the allele in genebank. There was no association between patients and controls in the rested HLA-DRB1 alleles.CONCLUSION: HLA-DRB1·0901 allele is more common in the patients with esophageal carcinoma than in the healthy controls, which is positively associated with the patients of Hubei Han Chinese. Individuals carrying HLA-DRB1·0901may be susceptible to esophageal carcinoma.