More Evidence on Leukemia

Cancer researchers who believe that leukemia in man, and especially in children, must somehow be caused by viruses--as are similar diseases in fowl, mice, rats, cows and horses--got new and suggestive evidence last week.

Though no one has yet been able to isolate a human leukemia virus and grow it in a test tube, one indirect way of establishing its presence is to find antibody against it. In the A.M.A. Journal, Dr. Steven O. Schwartz of Chicago's Hektoen Institute and Northwestern University reported that he had found antibody, apparently against leukemia, in a dozen families. Beginning in 1957, the Chicago suburb of Niles had eight fatal cases of leukemia in children who either attended the same school or had siblings and playmates who did. There had been one other case nearby, and three children now have the disease. The case grouping suggested infection by a virus.

Dr. Schwartz's team drew blood samples from 57 members of the leukemia victims' families, and from 52 people who were not known to have leukemia and were not known to have been exposed to it. None of the normal comparison subjects had antibody that could be linked with the suspected leukemia virus. But 19 of the parents, brothers and sisters of leukemia victims did have antibody. More of them may have had it, Dr. Schwartz believes, in tiny, undetectable amounts.

The Niles evidence, suggestive but not yet conclusive, is that leukemia viruses may be widespread. Most people develop antibody against the viruses and remain healthy. A few fail to develop antibody and get the disease--the researchers found no antibody in five leukemia patients still living.

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