CHROMOSOMAL STUDY IN LYMPHOCYTES FROM SUBJECTS LIVING OR WORKING IN BUILDINGS CONSTRUCTED WITH RADIOACTIVELY CONTAMINATED REBAR

It has recently been found that many buildings in Taiwan were construc ted with radioactively contaminated rebar, which raised great concern among the residents as well as governmental officials. In order to inv estigate the possible cytogenetic damage to the residents of contamina ted buildings, a G-banding method was carried out on the lymphocytes o f 30 radiation-exposed individuals from four families and one office b uilding, as well as 15 control individuals from laboratory personnel. The estimated cumulative radiation doses for the exposed people range from 19.63 to 280.50 mSv. Altogether, 13 females and 17 males belongin g to the radiation-exposed group, and 7 females and 8 males in the con trol group, were included in this study. With the exception of one sam ple, at least 500 metaphase spreads were scared and analyzed for each individual. All the recognizable structural aberrations of chromosomes or chromatids were recorded and statistically analyzed. Comparison of either percentage of cells with chromosome aberrations or number of a berrated chromosomes per 100 cells between the radiation-exposed and t he control groups manifested insignificant differences (p = 0.1145 and 0.0766, respectively). In addition, the chromosomal regions close to the centromere were found to break more frequently than elsewhere in t he genome.