Primary immunodeficiency diseases and malignancy in Japan

Twenty-two cases out of a total of 683 patients (3.2%) with primary immunodeficiency diseases registered in the All-Japan Immunodeficiency Registry were reported to have developed malignant diseases. In the childhood patients with ataxia-telangiectasia the incidence of death due to malignancy was approximately 625 times higher than that of the normal Japanese childhood population. The incidence of lymphoproliferative disorders, such as malignant lymphoma, in Chediak-Higashi syndrome and the incidence of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and various carcinomas in ataxia-telangiectasia were both high, 37.5% and 13.7%, respectively. Only one case out of 45 with Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome was reported to have malignant lymphoma. The data obtained were compared with international statistics reported by the Immunodeficiency Cancer Registry.