Genetic Predisposition to Hodgkin's Disease

To the Editor: From their study of Hodgkin's disease in monozygotic and dizygotic twins, Mack et al. (Feb. 16 issue)¹ concluded that genetic susceptibility underlies certain subtypes of Hodgkin's disease. We have studied the familial aggregation of hematologic neoplasms among 4061 relatives of 189 patients with any kind of hematologic neoplasm.² Fifty-six of the relatives (1.4 percent) had a hematologic neoplasm, with a calculated odds ratio of 3.62 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.44 to 9.07; P<0.01) as compared with two control groups and after adjustment for age, sex, ethnic group, number of relatives in the family, and degree of familial.