HLA and MLC typing in patients with Hodgkin's disease.

HLA typing for 27 A and B locus antigens was performed in 137 Caucasian patients with Hodgkin's disease. A and B locus antigen frequencies were compared for the entire group of patients, for 51 patients studied in a prospective manner and for 62 patients surviving with Hodgkin's disease for more than 5 years. MLC typing (HLA-D) was performed in 51 unselected Caucasian patients using 6 differend HLA-D homozygous test cells which define 3 HLA-D specificity groups (DW2, DW3, and DW4). HLA-AW33 was found in 0.0% of patients and in 5.9% of random Caucasian blood donors at the Sloan--Kettering Institute (X2 equals 7.04, p less than 0.01). HLA-A1 was found to be increased to 35.8% in the entire patient group (N = 137) as compared to 25.4% in 855 random North American Caucasians (X2 = 5.97, p less than 0.02). There was no significant deviation of any A or B locus antigen in relation to sex, histology, age of patient, or duration of survival (newly diagnosed vs 5-year survivors). No significant deviation for either of the 3 common HLA-D determinants (DW2, DW3, or DW4) was observed.