PARENT SESSION
3:45 PM to 5:15 PM
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
Mini-Symposium 11
DNA Repair and Cytogenetics
Room: Nevada 1-2
, Co-Chair: Brown, Martin1; Wallace, Susan 21Stanford University, Stanford, CA2University of Vermont, Burlington, VA
(MS11-3) Radiation-induced chromosomal damage predicts the risk of acute reactions after radiotherapy.
Borgmann, Kerstin*,1, Bernhard, Michael1, Brackrock, Sophie2, Jung, Horst1, Alberti, Winfried2, Dikomey, Ekkehard1, 1 Institute of Biophysics and Radiobiology, Hamburg, Germany2 Department of Radiotherapy and Radiooncology, Hamburg, Germany
ABSTRACT-
Purpose: The aim of this study was to test the predictive value of chromosomal damage for the acute reactions of cancer patients after radiotherapy. Materials and Methods: Blood samples of 52 cancer patients and 26 healthy donors were X-irradiated with doses up to 6 Gy and the number of excess acentric fragments were measured in the following metaphase using the conventional metaphase technique. Acute reactions were scored using the RTOG-score. Results: A modest increase of acute reaction (grade1-3) with total dose (55-72Gy), with r2=0.11 and p=0.04, was observed. No differences of spontaneous chromosome fragments (45.9+/-0.1/46.0+/-0.1) were noticed for healthy donors and cancer patients, irrespective of age, sex, confounding factors and tumor localisation. Grouping the analysed patients in view of the number of excess acentric fragments at 6 Gy in resistants (<1.8), normals (1.8-2.6) and sensitives (>2.6) showed marked differences in their radiosensitivity to radiotherapy. 40% of the sensitives showed acute reaction grade III compared to only 10% of the resistants and 21% of the normals. P-value showed no significance according to low number of individuals analysed up to now. Conclusion: These result indicate that chromosomal damage measured prospectively could identify individuals with higher radiosensitivity. Supported by grant no. 70-1932 Di I/II from the Deutsche Krebshilfe.
KEYWORDS: chromosome aberrations, human lymphocytes, radiosensitivity, predictive assay