Sera from 50 patients with Hodgkin's disease, 78 patients with non-Hodgkin non-leukemic malignant lymphomas, and 75 patients with different types of solid malignant tumors were investigated for the presence of immune complexes using the (125I) C1q-binding test. All patients were untreated. An increased serum C1q-binding activity was found in 22% of the patients with Hodgkin's disease, 35.9% of the non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients and in 37.3% of the patients with solid tumors. The C1q-binding material detected in the patients' sera had properties similar to those of immune complexes. On sucrose density gradient it sedimented as a 10-30 s material. It contained IgG which were dissociated under acid conditions. Passage through anti-IgG immunoabsorbent removed its C1q-binding properties. A prevalent association was found between the presence of serum immune complexes and disseminated disease stages in all the patient groups included. A similar association was found between the presence of serum immune complexes and general symptoms among the malignant lymphoma patients. The nature of the antigens involved in the complexes remains unknown.

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We studied the relation between the clinical course and the presence of circulating immune complexes at diagnosis and/or during complete remission in 186 patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Patients with immune complexes at diagnosis had significantly fewer complete remissions (32 vs. 94 per cent), remissions of shorter duration (median, 4.3 vs. 15.0 months), and shorter survival times (median, 1.8 vs. 22.3 months) than patients without such complexes (all comparisons, P less than 0.01). All patients with immune complexes during the first two months of remission remained in remission for less than six months, whereas only 11 per cent of patients without complexes within this period had such early relapse. Of 23 patients who relapsed after long remissions, 18 (78 per cent) had immune complexes that preceded hematologic evidence of relapse by three weeks to six months (median, 3.7 months). These findings suggest that circulating immune complexes may reflect an important aspect of the pathophysiology of acute myeloid leukemia, and that measurement of these complexes can provide useful prognostic information at diagnosis and during remission.