Oral cancers – Micronuclei as biomarker of genotoxicity a population-based study to establish usable dynamic cut off limits in tobacco users

Abstract

Buccal mucosal samples are studied for micronuclei in tobacco users. This was with emphasis in tobacco chewers. Earlier we established protocol for collecting,staining, and analyzing micronuclei (MN) in buccal smears. Samples from over 650 patients were studied for micronuclei. MN( micronuclei ) are used as a biomarker for genotoxicity in tobacco users. This was clearly evidenced by steady increase in frequency of MN from cases with no tobacco habit, cases with tobacco habit, to potentially malignant lesions (PMD )to frank malignancy in various stages. Since all tobacco ab-users do not get cancer and may take considerable time there is a need to identifying susceptible groups. Here one can arbitrarily use outliers. In the current study nearly 20 % are outliers This is a cheaper way and such cases an be subjected to further studies for some well known gene markers or these identified patient outliers can directly warned of thier greater susceptibility.