Submitted April 20, 2009
Accepted June 24, 2009
A prospective study of serum soluble CD30 concentration
and risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma
Mark P. Purdue*, Qing Lan, Otoniel Martinez-Maza, Martin M. Oken, William Hocking, Wen-Yi Huang, Dalsu Baris, Betty Conde, and Nathaniel Rothman
Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD, United States
Departments of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Department of Medicine, University of Minnesota, Robbinsdale, MN, United States
Department of Hematology/Oncology, Marshfield Clinic, Marshfield, WI, United States
Protein Expression Laboratory, Advanced Technology Program, SAIC-Frederick Inc., Frederick, MD, United States
* Corresponding author; email: purduem{at}mail.nih.gov.
Prediagnostic serum concentration of soluble CD30 (sCD30), a marker for chronic B-cell stimulation, has been associated with increased risk of developing AIDS-related non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in a recent study of HIV+ patients. To investigate among healthy individuals whether serum sCD30 is associated with NHL risk, we carried out a nested case-control study within the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial. There was a strong dose-response relationship between prediagnostic sCD30 concentration and NHL risk among 234 cases and 234 individually matched controls [odds ratio (95% confidence interval) for second, third and fourth quartiles vs. first quartile: 1.4 (0.8-2.6), 2.2 (1.2-4.1), 4.1 (2.2-7.8); Ptrend<0.0001] that persisted among cases diagnosed 6-10 years after providing a blood sample. Given that a similar relationship has been observed among HIV+ patients, our findings suggest that chronic B-cell stimulation may be an important mechanism involved in B-cell lymphomagenesis among severely immunocompromised and healthy populations alike.
