Cytokines are important immune mediators implicated in Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) pathogenesis but little is known on the role of immune gene variations. We assessed prospectively the prognostic role of cytokine gene single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in HL patients (pts) : IL10 (rs1800890, 448 pts; rs1800896, 459 pts ; rs1800871, 446 pts ; rs1800872, 447 pts), TNFA (rs1800629, 464 pts) ; IL6 (rs1800795, 201 pts) ; IL1B (rs16944, 198 pts) ; ILRN (rs419598, 199 pts) ; INFG (rs2430561, 200 pts) ; IL12 (rs3212227, 259 pts) ; CCL17 (rs223828, 198 pts). IL12 genotype distribution appears significantly different from what observed in general population according to Hardy-Weinberg test which was already observed in another published study. IL10-1082AA genotype was associated with better complete response than other IL10 genotypes (95% vs. 88% P = .02). For patients with stage III-IV HL, the 6-year overall survival was statistically different between IL10-592AA/CC/AC and IL10-819TT/CC/CT genotypes (100%, 94%, 78%, P = .03). This prognostic effect was observed in EBV-negative but not in EBV-positive HL. In EBV-negative HL, TNFA-308AA/GG/AG genotypes had a different 6-year progression-free survival (100%, 84%, 68%, P = .03). No correlation was observed between genotypes and IL-10, TNFA, IL-1RA, IL-6 cytokine levels. This exploratory study suggests an effect of IL10 and TNFA SNPs in predicting HL outcome but other studies are needed to decipher the role of the host immunogenetic background, in particular the relation with EBV. Regarding the IL12 genotyping results, whether IL12 polymorphism is implicated in HL susceptibility needs also to be clarify.
