Cancer: Hereditary Hodgkin’s lymphoma

New genetic variants associated with susceptibility to Hodgkin’s lymphoma are reported in a study published in Nature Communications this week. These findings provide further support for the hereditary component of Hodgkin’s lymphoma and provide new insight into potential causes of the disease.

There is a known familial risk for developing Hodgkin’s lymphoma and some of the genetic factors underlying this risk have been identified. Richard Houlston and colleagues now combine previously published data from different studies to generate a dataset of 1,465 Hodgkin’s lymphoma cases and 6,417 controls. From this, they identify two new genetic variants, 3p24.1 and 6q23.3, that are associated with the risk of developing Hodgkin’s lymphoma.