Bleomycin-induced chromosome aberrations in head and neck cancer patients analyzed by classical cytogenetics and FISH

Individual sensitivity to mutagens has been considered to play an important role in head-and-neck squamous cells carcinoma (HNSCC) development. The bl eomycin test was introduced for establishing constitutional susceptibility to mutagens (T.C. Hsu, D.A. Johnston, L.M. Cherry, D. Ramkisson, S.P. Schan tz, J.M. Jessup, R.J. Winn, L. Shirley, C. Furlong, Sensitivity to genotoxi c effects of bleomycin in humans: possible relationship to environmental ca rcinogenesis, Int. J. Cancer 43 (1989) 403-409). Its criteria are based on scoring of chromosome aberrations (CAs, mainly breaks) in Giemsa-stained ch romosomes. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) offers an easy method for analysis of translocations, acentric fragments and dicentrics. In the p resent study FISH was applied in the analysis of bleomycin-induced CAs of t he HNSCC patients and controls. The results proved that FISH is a complemen tary method to the classical staining in monitoring of bleomycin-induced CA s. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.