Immunoglobulin allotypes Gm and Km in hematologic malignancies.

Immunoglobulin allotypes of the Gm and Km systems have been compared in patients with various forms of hematologic malignancies and healthy controls of the same ethnographic background. These comparisons found an increased frequency of the haplotype Gm and a decreased frequency of Gm in patients with Hodgkin's disease; a decreased frequency of Gm in diffuse, large-cell lymphoma patients; a decreased frequency of Gm and an increased frequency of Gm in acute myeloid leukemia patients; a decreased frequency of Gm in chronic myeloid leukemia patients, and an increased frequency of the phenotype Km(1+) in chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients. These results support previous suggestions of the involvement of immunoglobulin allotypes in the susceptibility to some forms of human hematologic malignancy.