Background: A high cellular radiosensitivity may be connected with a risk for development of severe side effects after radiotherapy and indicate cancer susceptibility.
Hence, a fast and robust in vitro test is desirable to identify radiosensitive individuals.
Materials and Methods: The study included 25 prostate cancer patients with severe side effects (S) and 25 patients without severe side effects (0) after radiotherapy as well as 23 male healthy age-matched donors. Blood samples were exposed to 0.5 Gy or 1 Gy of γ-rays. The initial level of double-strand breaks (dsb) and repair kinetics measured by phosphorylation of histone H2A (γ-H2AX-assay), apoptosis (Annexin V-assay) and the induction of chromatid aberrations after irradiation in the G2-phase of the cell cycle (G2-assay) were analysed.
Results: A significant higher chromatid aberration yield was found in lymphocytes from prostate cancer patients when compared to healthy donors. We found no significant differences between patients S and patients 0.
Conclusions: There is no obvious correlation between clinical and cellular radiosensitivity in lymphocytes of prostate cancer patients when all chosen in vitro assays are considered. Although 25% of the patients showed both severe side effects and increased radiation-induced chromosomal sensitivity, predictive value of G2-assay is doubtful.
Written by:
Brzozowska K, Pinkawa M, Eble MJ, Müller WU, Wojcik A, Kriehuber R, Schmitz S. Are you the author?
Research Center Juelich GmbH, Department of Safety and Radiation Protection, Juelich.
Reference: Int J Radiat Biol. 2012 Mar 14. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.3109/09553002.2012.666002
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 22348555
