Karyotypic abnormalities and immunoglobulin gene rearrangements in Hodgkin's disease.

Biopsy samples from seven patients with Hodgkin's disease (HD) were examined for cytogenetic abnormalities and rearrangement of the genes encoding the immunoglobulin chains and T-cell receptor chains. Three samples demonstrated clonal rearrangements of both IgH and IgL genes. No rearrangements of the TCR beta genes were detected in any of the samples. Karyotypic abnormalities were also found but only in the three cases where a clonal rearrangement of the immunoglobulin genes was shown. Two of these three cases had multiple karyotypic abnormalities, with the remaining patient being trisomic for chromosome 16 as the sole abnormality. These results are discussed and compared with previous reports in the literature concerning HD.