Age and sex distributions of monoclonal gammopathy were studied for 12,196 healthy controls and 2056 patients with various malignancies. The frequency of monoclonal component in adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) patients was found to be much higher than that in patients with other malignancies and in healthy controls. This suggested that the occurrence of ATL and monoclonal gammopathy is not coincidental. Three cases of ATI, with monoclonal gammopathy are also reported.
Cancer 56: 1380-1383, 1985.
DULT T-CELL LEUKEMIA (ATL) was identified by
A Takatsuki el a/.' as a clinical entity on the basis of its clinical picture. cell morphologic features, and cell surface markers. After the discovery and verification of human and adult T-cell leukemia viruses (HTLV or ATLV, respectively*") in ATL and the establishment of serodiagnostic methods, it has been shown that this disease is limited to certain geographic areas, such as southwestern Japan and some parts of the ATL cells infected by HTLV have gag, poly, env, and pX genes in their nucleotide sequence. However, the functions of proteins coded by their proviral genome are yet unknown. It is possible that those proteins influence cellular regulatory enzymes such as protein kinase or methylation enzymes or they may act on other oncogenes or immunoglobulin genes. In fact, it is well known that ATL patients are in a state of immunodeficiency. Thus, it is essential to examine the correlation of ATL patients with their immunoglobulin production.
Monoclonal gammopathy was recognized in 3 of 26 patients with ATL who were examined at the