Relationship between genotoxic effects of breast cancer treatments and patient basal DNA integrity.

CEBALLOS M P; CAPITAINE FUNES, J; MASSA E; CIPULLI, G; BENITEZ GIL, ALFONSO; CAPITAINE FUNES, CARLOS; TOZZINI, ROBERTO; GHERSEVICH, SERGIO

JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL PATHOLOGY, TOXICOLOGY AND ONCOLOGY : OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL TOXICOLOGY AND CANCER.

BEGELL HOUSE INC

Año: 2014 p. 111 - 121

0731-8898

It is accepted that radiotherapy and chemotherapy cause genotoxic effects as part of their therapyside effects, which are highly variable among different patients. This study evaluated DNAintegrity using the comet assay in peripheral blood lymphocytes from breast cancer patientsbefore (?pre-treatment patients?; n = 47) and after (?post-treatment patients?; n = 24)radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy treatment and from healthy donors (n = 15). Comet evaluationwas made by visual (types 0-4) and digital (percentage of DNA remaining in the comet head = %head DNA) analysis. The association between the level of DNA damage and cancer prognosticfactors was assessed. The treatments caused a significant increase in DNA damage registered byboth visual (p < 0.001) and digital (p < 0.001) analysis. No significant associations between thelevel of DNA damage in pre-treatment patients and cancer prognostic factors were found.Results showed a significant correlation between the comet results from each patient before andafter treatment (r = 0.64, p = 0.001). The % head DNA in post-treatment samples from patientswith high level of DNA damage before treatment (30.3 ± 3.1%, p < 0.01) was lower than in posttreatmentsamples from patient with low to medium level of DNA damage before therapy (49.2 ±4.4%). Results support the usefulness of the comet assay as a sensitive technique to evaluate thebasal DNA status and the damage caused by cancer treatments. The assay could contribute to thetreatment decisions, taking into account the patient basal DNA damage before therapy.