Higher frequency of dicentrics and micronuclei in peripheral blood lymphocytes of cancer patients

The presence of dicentric chromosome (DC) and micronuclei (MN) frequency in the peripheral blood lymphocytes of 25 cancer patients prior to chemo and radiotherapy and 21 healthy volunteers were studied. The overall DC and MN showed significantly higher frequency compared to those obtained in normal healthy volunteers (p<0.0001). However, among 25 patients only 15 showed a higher frequency of DC aberration, nine patients showed the presence of minutes (M) and seven patients showed chromatid breaks (ChB). The reasons for the higher frequency of aberration observed in these cancer patients are discussed in this paper.