HL-A antigen frequencies in myeloma

The frequency of HL-A antigens was determined in 63 myeloma patients and in 83 normal subjects. HL-A5 was more frequent among patients (15.9%) than among controls (3.6%). This association was significant at the 0.05 level, but the significance did not survive multiplication by the number of antigens under study. The relationship of these findings to previous work on myeloma is discussed, together with the problems of defining components of the 4c antigenic group.