Reports of 4,529 cases of infectious mononucleosis diagnosed during the years 1948–1964 among residents of Connecticut were identified through existing records and matched against a register of cancer cases covering the same population. The overall cancer risk following infectious mononucleosis was increased with 33 cancers observed compared to 24.4 expected for a relative risk of 1.4. Although this increased cancer risk was not large and may easily have occurred by chance, larger relative risks were found for certain forms of cancer, particularly malignant lymphomas (7 observed, 1.9 expected, relative risk = 3.7). The most provocative finding of this study was that five cases of Hodgkin's disease developed subsequent to infectious mononucleosis.

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Presented at the International Symposium on Human Tumors Associated with Herpesvirus, March 26 to 28, 1973, Bethesda, Md.

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©1974 American Association for Cancer Research.
1974
Cancer Research, Inc.