Immunoglobulins in Familial Hodgkin’s Disease and Immunodeficiency in Newfoundland

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Abstract
A familial aggregate of 7 cases of Hodgkin’s disease, 3 of common variable immunodeficiency, 8 of other lymphoreticular malignancies, and 4 of embryonic tumours is being studied in a multidiscipline fashion to search for clues to aetiology. Part of the investigation was to examine immunoglobulin concentrations in the whole population, both in family members and in other members of the same communities. Analysis of the data on some 1,200 people revealed the expected changes with age in IgG, IgA and IgM. A striking age-related pattern for IgD with a peak in puberty and young adulthood was noted. The expected sex differences were also seen which were marked for IgM and mild for IgG. The immunoglobulin concentrations in families in which there had been a case of malignancy or immunodeficiency showed two deviations from values derived from controls: (i) relatives of the common variable immunodeficiency patients showed an elevated mean IgM, and (ii) relatives of the Hodgkin’s disease patients and of the lymphosarcoma patients showed mean IgD concentrations that were 20 times as high as that of controls from outside the study population and were the highest of all the groups within it. However, when compared with the controls from elsewhere in the province, the mean IgD values in all subgroups of the study population were significantly elevated including in a genetically separate group not descended from an important founding couple. It is concluded that factors causing elevated IgD in this high lymphoma incidence population are likely to be predominantly determined by environment rather than by genetic factors. We postulate that the increase may be partly due to the low socio-economic status of the population, but the reason why the highest values are found in the lymphoma families is not immediately clear.