Chromosome aberrations frequency in peripheral blood lymphocytes in young tobacco smoking and non-smoking people

Abstract

Introduction: Cigarette smoking is associated with severe health problems, especially cancers. In addition, cigarette smoking causes different genotoxic effects. Chromosome aberrations are one of well-known intermediate end points in carcinogenesis. The aim of this study was to compare frequencies of chromosome aberrations in peripheral blood lymphocytes between young smokers and non-smokes groups.

Methods: The study was conducted with 30 smokers (average age 26.93 years) and 30 non-smokers (average age 26.96 years), and included the analysis of 100 metaphases per each blood sample. Differences in the arithmetic means of determined frequencies of chromosome aberrations were tested by two-tailed t-test for independent samples with the significance level of p < 0.05.

Results: The results showed a significant increase in the frequencies of chromatid-type aberrations and total structural chromosome aberrations in smoker group. Frequencies of numerical aberrations did not differ significantly between two groups.

Conclusions: This study confirmed genotoxicity of cigarette smoking and provided new evidence about its clastogenic activity.