Prevalence of micronuclei in exfoliated uterine cervical cells from patients with risk factors for cervical cancer

Abstract

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE: Pap smears are the most common and inexpensive screening method for cervical cancer. We analyzed micronucleus prevalence in exfoliated cervical mucosa cells, to investigate associations between increased numbers of micronuclei and risk factors for cervical cancer. DESIGN AND SETTING: Analytical cross-sectional study, at Instituto de Pesquisa em Oncologia (IPON). METHODS: Exfoliated cervical cells were obtained from 101 patients between September 2004 and November 2005. Patients' ages, habits (passive or active smoking, alcoholism and numbers of sexual partners), age at first sexual intercourse, contraceptive methods used, histories of sexually transmitted diseases, use of hormone replacement therapy, numbers of pregnancies and abortions, inflammatory cytology and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) were obtained. Cells were collected using Ayre spatulas, transferred to vials containing 0.9% saline solution for micronucleus tests and analyzed at 1000x magnification. The number of micronuclei in 1,000 epithelial cells per patient sample was counted. RESULTS: Comparisons between groups with active (7.9 ± 7.8) and passive (7.2 ± 10.6) smoking versus no smoking (3.7 ± 5.1); with/without alcoholism (7.8 ± 1.4 and 6.9 ± 10.1); with/without inflammatory cytology (10.7 ± 10.5 and 1.3 ± 1.7); and with CIN I, II and III and no CIN (respectively 4.3 ± 4.3, 10.6 ± 5.3, 22.7 ± 11.9 and 1.3 ± 1.4) found elevated micronucleus prevalence (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: We concluded that the prevalence of micronuclei in exfoliated uterine cervical cells was greater in patients with one or more risk factors for uterine cervical cancer than in patients without risk factors.

A Current Method in Gynecological Cancer Prediction: 'Micronucleus': Review

“…The results obtained showed that, patients with one or more risk factors have a higher prevalence rate of micronuclei in exfoliated cells than those without any risk factors. 21 This study results demonstrated a strong association between HPV type infection andMN frequency. MN may comprise an additional criterion for establishing HPV typeinfection and cervical cancer risk.…”

“…21 The aim was to examine how increased numbers of micronuclei relate to cervical cancer. Cervical mucosa cells were obtained from over 101 patients, with Ayre spatulas.…”

Micronuclei as biomarkers for evaluating the risk of malignant transformation in the uterine cervix

“…The micronucleus frequency was significantly higher in women with cervical cancer than in women showing precursor lesions, and this finding did not differ between the various stages of cancer progression. However, Campos et al (2008) described a positive association between micronucleus occurrence and lesion grade. Similar results were reported earlier by Chakrabart and Dutta (1988).…”

Why an Experienced Eye May Not Detect Micronucleated Cells Using Papanicolaou's Stain

“…The number of exfoliated cells scored in MN analysis varies from group to group (from 500 to 3,000) [2,7,9,10]. The majority of studies score between 1,000 and 3,000 cells [2], and there are many published studies that scored 1,000 cells [11,12,13,14,15,16]. Pandey et al [13] analyzed 1,000 cells by staining with the DNA-specific dye acridine orange under a fluorescent microscope in borderline cases of cervical dysplasia, and also counted over 1,000 cells.…”