Chest malignancies & serum immunoglobulin E

Serum IgE levels were measured by the radioimmunoassay technique in the sera of 53 patients with neoplastic chest diseases. Forty seven patients had malignant chest tumours and another 6 had benign tumours or mediastinal cysts. They included 33 smokers and 20 non-smokers. For comparison, 30 normal non-smoking controls matched for age and sex were included. The serum IgE levels in patients with chest malignancies showed an increase as compared to controls. The IgE levels increased significantly in adenocarcinoma (P < 0.01) and squamous cell carcinoma (P < 0.001), while they were not raised in poorly differentiated carcinoma. There was no significant difference between the serum IgE levels of 32 smokers and 15 non-smokers with malignant chest tumours.