MICRONUCLEATED ERYTHROCYTES IN SPLENECTOMIZED PATIENTS WITH AND WITHOUT CHEMOTHERAPY

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the range of micro nucleated erythrocytes (MNE) in peripheral blood from splenectomized p atients with and without genotoxic chemotherapy. The erythrocytes were stained with Wright and Giemsa for microscopic observation, To estima te the number of MNE, two series of 10 000 erythrocytes per sample wer e analyzed and averaged. The results expressed as mean +/- standard de viation were as follows: control patients with genotoxic chemotherapy (n = 6) 2.5 +/- 1.5 (range 1 to 5 MNE); splenectomized patients with g enotoxic chemotherapy (n = 7) 65.2 +/- 17.7 (range: 47-108) MNE and sp lenectomized patients without genotoxic chemotherapy (it = 13) 29.5 +/ - 5.8 MNE; (range: 18.5-35.6), The MNE number in the patients treated with genotoxic chemotherapy depended on the type of drugs utilized: cy clophosphamide, mitoxantrone, vincristine, busulphan, cytosine arabino side and hydroxyurea. Upon these results, it is suggested that splenec tomized people could be useful in monitoring exposures, and the baseli ne MNE level would serve as each persons pre-exposure control when eit her chronic or acute exposure to environmental mutagens is investigate d.