(National Tumor Biology Laboratory, NLP-17) Funder: The Hungarian National Laboratories
Excellence program
((NKFIH FK 124937 National Research, Development & Innovation Office (NRDIO) - Hungary))
Funder: NRDIO
Cytogenetic analysis of chromosomes in blood lymphocytes can be used to reveal biomarkers
of tumor risk. The frequency of chromosomal aberrations (CAs) appears to correlate
with the later incidence of cancer.In our work, a total of 515 healthy Hungarian medical
workers and 725 controls were enrolled in our investigation. The CAs in peripheral
blood lymphocytes were analyzed.The frequency of CAs was significantly higher in the
groups working with ionizing radiation and with cytostatic agents compared to unexposed
controls and in male smokers rather than non-smokers. The frequency of dicentric chromosomes,
however, was not significantly different between control and exposed groups. Among
82 cancer cases (6.6%), the most frequent types were cancer of the breast (20.5%),
colon (12.8%), lung and thyroid gland (9-9%). Our analysis showed 8.1% cancer cases
in smokers compared to 5.7% in non-smokers.The potential exposure to carcinogens did
not modify the effect of CAs on cancer risk but tobacco smoking did increase risk.
