Hodgkin's disease in the endemic area of adult T-cell leukemia (ATL).

Antibodies to adult T-cell leukemia associated antigen (ATLA) in the sera from 14 patients with Hodgkin's disease (HD) were examined by the indirect immunofluorescence method. All patients were born in the ATL-endemic area, Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures, of Japan. Seven of the 13 evaluable patients (54%) gave positive reactions in the anti-ATLA test. Most of the positive patients were over 40 years of age and the positive rate in males was higher than that in females. The most interesting finding in the anti-ATLA positive patients was the presence of circulating abnormal lymphocytes which are usually found in ATL patients. Histological subclassification of the positive patients had no tendency to converge into a particular subclass of HD. Although there was no definite evidence to show an etiological relationship between ATL virus and HD, several findings in this study seem to suggest that in anti-ATLA positive patients, especially in the ATL-endemic area, the anti-ATLA positive state might have some inevitable influence on the natural history of their HD.