CYTOGENETIC ABNORMALITIES IN COLON-CANCER PATIENTS - A COMPARISON OF T-LYMPHOCYTES AND B-LYMPHOCYTES

Cytogenetic analysis of peripheral blood lymphocytes of 19 colorectal cancer patients was carried out in short term blood cultures (T-cells) as well as in Epstein - Barr virus transformed B-cell lymphoblastoid cell lines. One hundred Giemsa - banded metaphases from the T lymphocy tes and 50 metaphases from the B lymphocytes of each patient were' eva luated for cytogenetic abnormalities. Clonality was not observed in ev ery paired sample. Structural and/or numerical aberrations were most f requent in chromosomes #1, #2, #5, #7, #9, #12, #14, #17, #18 and #21. Aberrations among these chromosomes could be observed individually in either of the cultures, which proves that the analysis of both cultur es (T and B cells) is complementary to each other. In some cases invol ving multiple primary cancers it was interesting that the specific chr omosomal change, crucial for a particular malignancy, was identified o nly in the lymphoblastoid cell line analysis. This supports the notion that B-cell analysis can serve as a useful adjunct to the study of sh ort-term blood cultures and also poses a question as to whether the sp ecific chromosomal changes observed in the analysis are confined to th e B-cell lineage.