Wl. Chen et al., CHROMOSOMAL STUDY IN LYMPHOCYTES FROM SUBJECTS LIVING OR WORKING IN BUILDINGS CONSTRUCTED WITH RADIOACTIVELY CONTAMINATED REBAR, Mutation research, 377(2), 1997, pp. 247-254
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.