Non-Organ Specific Autoantibodies in Malignant Diseases

A significant increase in non-organ specific autoantibodies is demonstrated in 13 per cent of the sera from 202 patients with histologically proven malignancies, as compared with only 4 per cent of sera from 214 age and sex matched control patients. It appears that the incidence of autoantibodies is related to the histological type of the tumour but not to the presence or absence of tumour dissemination. While the control group shows the expected increase in both incidence and titre of autoantibodies with increasing age, the malignant patients show no such pattern, i.e. in cancer patients autoantibodies occur with equal frequency and at similar titres regardless of age. The absence of an age related increase in incidence and titre of non organ specific autoantibodies does not appear to have been reported previously. Our findings lend support to the hypothesis that cancer is associated with a breakdown of immunological surveillance, not only in old but also in young cancer patients. Thus the finding of non organ specific autoantibodies, especially to smooth muscle antigen, in an apparently healthy adult could be considered evidence of such a breakdown, carrying with it an increased risk of neoplasia.