MICRONUCLEUS MONITORING TO ASSESS HUMAN OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURE TO ORGANOCHLORIDES

Health surveillance for hazardous situations due to chemical exposure, in particular those which are carcinogenic, requires sensitive monito ring tests. Although experimental studies have shown the genotoxic and carcinogenic effect of several organochlorides, the lack of epidemiol ogic studies prevents their classification as carcinogenic to human be ings. In this context, genotoxicity tests of short duration in human c ells gain importance. The relation between the clastogenic effects (ch romosome breaks) and cancer induction is already known to the scientif ic literature. The micronucleus test has been proposed as a good indic ator of clastogenesis. In the present study, we evaluated, by means of the micronucleus test, 41 workers of a chemical industry in the state of Sao Paulo, southeast region of Brazil, who had been exposed to a m ixture of chlorinated solvents (carbon tetrachloride, perchloroethylen e, and hexachlorobenzene) and 28 workers who had not been exposed. Per ipheral lymphocytes stimulated by phytohemagglutinin and with cytokine sis blocked by cytochalasin B were used. The results showed that the e xposed workers presented a statistically significant higher frequency of micronuclei than the group which had not been exposed. (C) 1997 Wil ey-Liss, Inc.