(National Tumor Biology Laboratory, NLP-17) Funder: The Hungarian National Laboratories
Excellence program
(K-124937) Funder: NRDIO
Due to the profound difference in radiosensitivity of patients and various side effects
caused by this phenomenon, a radiosensitivity marker is needed. Prediction by a marker
may help personalise the treatment. In this study, we tested chromosomal aberrations
(CA) of in vitro irradiated blood as predictor of pulmonary function decrease of nonsmall
cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients and also compared it with the CAs in the blood of
irradiated patients. Peripheral blood samples were taken from 45 lung cancer patients
before stereotactic radiotherapy (SBRT) and immediately after the last fraction and
3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, and 24 months later. Respiratory function measurements were
performed at the same time. Diffusing capacity of lung for carbon monoxide (DLCO),
forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1s), and FEV1s/FVC
(FEV1%) were monitored. Metaphase preparations of lymphocytes were made with standard
procedures, and chromosome aberrations were analysed. In our cohort, the 36-month
local relapse-free survival was 97.4%, and the distant metastasis-free survival was
71.5% at 36 months. There was no change in the mean of the pulmonary function tests
(PFTs) after the therapy. However, there was a considerable variability between the
patients. Therefore, we subtracted the baseline and normalised the PFT values. There
were significant decreases at 12-24 months in relative FEV1s and relative FEV1%. The
tendentious decrease of the PFTs could be predicted by the in vitro chromosome aberration
data. We also found connections between the in vitro and in vivo CA values (i.e.,
dicentrics plus rings after 3 Gy irradiation predicts dicentric-plus-ring value directly
after the radiotherapy/V54 Gy (p = 0.001 24.2%)). We found that-after further validation-chromosome
aberrations resulted from in vitro irradiation before radiotherapy can be a predictive
marker of pulmonary function decrease after lung irradiation.
