MS and Young Adult-onset Hodgkin Lymphoma May Share Underlying Causes, Study Says

                                                                  

Previous studies suggested that multiple sclerosis (MS) and Hodgkin lymphoma might share underlying causes, including exposure to microorganisms in childhood, such as Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection. In the study “Multiple sclerosis and risk of young-adult-onset Hodgkin lymphoma,” published in the journal Neurology: Neuroimmunology and Neuroinflammation, researchers suggested that common inherited or acquired risks for these conditions do exist.

Hodgkin lymphoma has three age-defined phenotypes, but it was the specific stage ofyoung adult-onset Hodgkin lymphoma (YAHL) that was reported to be associated with a pattern of childhood markers of infectious exposure, and linked to MS.

The research team investigated if MS is associated with YAHL but not with the other Hodgkin lymphoma phenotypes. A cohort of 29,617 Swedish patients with an MS diagnosis (between 1968 and 2012) , and a control group of 296,164 people without MS, were used.

After being adjusted for participants’ age/period, sex, county of residence, and education level, results suggested that the association between MS and YAHL does exist, and most notably in female patients. Specifically, researchers found four patients with YAHL among the MS cohort, and 16 in the non-MS cohort. All four diagnoses of YAHL in MS occurred in women. The researchers, however, noted this may be due to the fact that most MS patients in the cohort were women, or because of sex-specific differences in susceptibility to a risk for both diseases.

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