Varicella-zoster antibodies in patients with Hodgkin's disease.

In an endeavour to find an explanation for th raised incidence of herpes zoster in hemoblastoses, serum samples of 50 patients with histologically confirmed Hodgkin's disease and 80 control sera of normal persons of similar age groups were tested for the presenchods of indirect hemagglutination (IH), complement fixation (CF), and immunodiffusion (ID). The geometric mean titer of IH antibodies and the rate of positive ID results were significantly higher in the patients' group. The geometric mean titers of CF antibodies did not differ significantly in the two groups.