Analysis of exfoliated buccal cell micronuclei (MN) is a sensitive method of monitoring genetic damage in the human population. In the present study 50 patients with precancerous or malignant oral epithelial lesions from the Departments of Facio-maxillary and ENT Surgery of RKMSP Hospital, Kolkata were compared with 50 age and sex matched healthy controls without any oral lesions.The MN frequency was increased in preoperative cancer cases and decreased in postoperative cases, while in pre cancerous cases it was higher than in the controls.

(1) The VNPI was a local recurrence rate predictor between the low and the intermediate groups but in our series the low VNPI group had a surprisingly high local recurrence rate. (2) Only prospective studies will assess the importance of margin width and the role of radiotherapy in maintaining local control. (3) Estimation of the percentage of positive blocks is simple, may be an alternative when measurement of DCIS is difficult and should be taken into account.

It is estimated that out of approximately 31.4 million people living in North-eastern India, about 8.1 million are tribal people of the hills and plains. Among four of the seven north-eastern states, tribal people are in majority. Arunachal Pradesh is made of approximately 24 major tribal groups, which constitute about 70% of the total population, Tripura 29% and in Assam constitutes 11%. A total of 1726 cases were randomly selected in this study, out of which 1263 cases were from North-east India, namely from Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Tripura and the rest were from West Bengal. Hematological parameters were estimated and agarose gel electrophoresis for identification of the Hb variants was performed. DNA was isolated, amplified and analysed by PCR-ARMS technology. The incidence of anemia among the tribal people of Assam was 59.82%, in Arunachal Pradesh 53.77% and Tripura 57.45%. The presence of hemoglobinopathies and thalassemia account for anemia in a sizeable population of the north-eastern states in certain tribes and urgent health resources are needed to deal with this. HbE appears to be the commonest hemoglobin among the different tribes of north-east.

Oral carcinoma is the most common malignancy found in adult Indian men and the third most common in adult Indian women. About half of all cases are found to be associated with precancerous lesions, chiefly leukoplakia. We wanted to explore the possible benefits of black tea (Camellia sinensis) administered to patients with oral leukoplakia. Eighty-two subjects with oral leukoplakia underwent micronuclei and chromosomal assays on exfoliated oral mucosal epithelium, after which they received black tea in a fixed regimen. The micronuclei assay was repeated at 6 months, and the chromosomal study at 1 year. After the first year, the first 15 patients entered onto this study showed a significant decrease in the micronuclei frequency and chromosomal aberrations, which correlated with the clinical improvement. Several in vitro and animal studies have suggested the efficacy of tea in the chemoprevention of cancer. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the effect of black tea in oral leukoplakia.

In this report, the spectrum of ␤-thalassemia mutations and genotype-to-phenotype correlations were defined in large number of patients (␤-thalassemia carriers and major) with varying disease severity in an Eastern Indian population mainly from the state of West Bengal. The five most common ␤-thalassemia mutations were detected, which included IVS1-5 (G➝C), codon 15 (G➝A), codon 26 (G➝A), codon 30 (G➝C), and codon 41/42 (−TCTT). These accounted for 85% in 80 ␤-thalassemic alleles deciphered from 56 patients, including ␤-thalassemia major and carriers, and 15% of alleles remained uncharacterized in these patients. Expression of the human ␤-globin gene is regulated by an array of cis-acting DNA elements, including five DNase I hypersensitive sites (HSs) in the locus control region (LCR), promoters that incorporate certain silencer elements, and enhancers at 3 of the ␤-globin gene. For detailed studies and to understand the molecular basis of ␤-thalassemia, we studied two groups of subjects: a group of 12 patients from four families having ␤-thalassemia major and carrier phenotype and a control group of 26 healthy individuals. In these two groups, we examined portions of the ␤-globin gene locus control region HSs 1, 2, 3, and 4, which included the (CA) x (TA) y repeat motif, the (AT) x N y (AT) z repeat motif, the inverted repeat sequence TGGGGACCCCA, the promoter region of the G ␥-globin gene, an (AT) x (T) y repeat 5 of the silencer region, and the ␤-globin gene and its 3 flanking region. We investigated the allelic sequence polymorphisms in these regions and their association with the ␤-thalassemia mutations to know the possible genotype-phenotype relationship in ␤-thalassemia patients. An analysis of cisacting regulatory regions showed varied sequence haplotypes associated with some frequent ␤-thalassemia mutations in this Eastern Indian population. Am.