The frequency of sister chromatid exchange (SCE) was investigated in cultured lymphocytes from 22 women with cervical cancer together with 22 control women. For scoring SCE, 40 second and/or third cycle metaphases were analyzed from each subject. The ...
The frequency of sister chromatid exchange (SCE) was investigated in cultured lymphocytes from 22 women with cervical cancer together with 22 control women. For scoring SCE, 40 second and/or third cycle metaphases were analyzed from each subject. The SCE frequencies were found to be 7.75 0.19 and 5.25 0.11 in cancer cases and controls, respectively. And the difference is highly significant (P<0.001). The individual SCE frequency among control subjects was relatively constant compared with cancer patients, and the variance of SCE frequency among controls was significantly smaller than among cancer cases (P<0.01). In comparison to the lymphocytes from healthy controls, the cells responding to PHA-M in cultures from cancer cases showed no cell cycle retardation. The significance of this study in relation to the possibility of using SCE as a preclinical marker will be discussed.