Prolonged survival in bronchogenic carcinoma associated with HL A antigens W 19 and HL A5: a preliminary report

The HL A antigens were determined retrospectively in a group of 14 surgically cured bronchogenic carcinoma patients and prospectively in another group of 100 untreated patients. In the retrospective group, the frequencies of antigens W 19 and HL A5 were significantly increased when compared with the noncancer control and the prospective lung cancer populations. In the latter group, 60% of the patients with W 19 and 58% with HL A5 survived without evidence of tumour for at least 1 year after treatment compared with 15% of patients with neither of these antigens, P less than 0.01 and 0.005, respectively. These comparisons were for adenocarcinoma and squamous carcinoma. The patient groups for oat cell and undifferentiated carcinoma were too small for valid statistical comparisons. This preliminary study suggests that the presence of HL A antigens W 19 and HL A5 confers resistance to dissemination of bronchogenic carcinoma.