Evaluation Of Micronuclei Using Papanicolaou And May Grunwald Giemsa Stain In Individuals With Different Tobacco Habits ? A Comparative Study

摘要

Aims: To compare the Papanicolaou?s (Pap) and May Grunwald?s Giemsa (MGG) staining techniques which are done to detect micronuclei (MN) in exfoliated buccal mucosal cells in individuals with different tobacco habits. To determine the severity of human buccal cell changes which are associated with smoking and smokeless (??chewing??) tobacco (SLT).Methods and Material: A total of 45 male subjects (15 smokers, 15 smokeless tobacco users and 15 non users/ non smokers) were examined. Two cytological smears were taken from the apparently normal buccal mucosa from each individual. 45 smears (1 per individual) were wet fixed and stained with Pap and the remaining 45 smears were air dried and stained with the MGG stain. All the smears were assessed for cellularity and were scored for MN. Statistical analysis used: The ANOVA (one way analysis of variance) was used to analyse the frequency of cells with micronuclei. Bonferroni multiple comparisons were done to determine the significance (p<0.05) of the mean difference.Results: MNs were easily seen in the clear cytoplasm in the Pap smears. Regarding the MGG smears, bacteria and cell debris masked the effect of the MNs as compared to the Pap smears, where the fixative destroyed the bacteria and clearly demarcated the cell boundaries. The score of the MN frequency decreased as we moved from the smokeless tobacco chewers to the smokers and then to the non users and the non smokers. Conclusions: Pap is a better stain as compared to MGG for counting micronuclei. Smokeless tobacco chewers showed an increased number of MNs as compared to the smokers, thus laying emphasis on the greater carcinogenic potential of tobacco which was used in the chewable form.