Increased frequencies of alpha-naphthoflavone induced sister chromatid exchanges in long-term survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

ABSTRACT

Cultures of whole-blood were established from 12 children (mean age = 13.5 years) surviving acute lymphoblastic leukemia (mean time of discontinued therapy = 4.5 years) and 10 age-matched controls were assessed for the level of baseline, alpha-naphthoflavone (ANF) and methyl-methane-sulphonate (MMS) induced sister chromatid exchanges (SCEs). The average baseline levels of SCEs in the patient group (7.65) and in the control (6.72) were different at a statistical marginal level (P = 0.05). No statistical difference was observed in the levels of MMS-induced SCEs between the two groups (P greater than 0.1). In contrast, highly significant differences (P = 0.003) were observed in the level of ANF-induced SCE-levels between the patients (10.78) and the controls (8.76).