Immunogenetic aspects of nasopharyngeal carcinoma: I. Differences in HL‐A antigen profiles between patients and control groups

This paper reports the results of two studies which compared the HL‐A profile of predominantly Chinese patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma to that of suitably chosen controls. The first study demonstrated a significant increase in the proportion of NPC patients in whom less than two second locus antigens were detectable. The second confirmatory study also demonstrated the same phenomenon at a high level of statistical significance, and furthermore showed a significant elevation among the NPC patients of the frequency of HL‐A2. Both the elevation of the HL‐A2 frequency and the deficit of detectable second locus antigens remained significant after application of the most conservative correction factor for the number of antigens investigated. Various sources of bias have been considered and appear not to have appreciably influenced the results. The results are discussed in terms of the postulated genetic basis of the elevated risk for NPC among the Chinese.