title: [Evidence for a major role of genetic factors in the etiology of laryngeal and hypopharyngeal carcinomas].
abstract: Several investigations revealed that lymphocytes from patients with head and neck cancers showed a high sensitivity to mutagens. However, whether lymphocytes from healthy blood relatives of the patients were sensitive to mutagen or not had not been reported. This study was aimed to investigate the unknown problem. Mutagen sensitivity was investigated in 116 laryngeal and 38 hypopharyngeal cancer patients, 107 healthy controls, and 30 blood relatives of laryngeal or hypopharyngeal cancer patients. Chromosome damage was measured by enumerating mutagen-induced chromatid breaks, the average number of chromatid breaks per cell (b/c value) was used as marker which reflects variable host susceptibility to the action of environmental carcinogens. The b/c values were 0.61 +/- 0.27, 0.66 +/- 0.31, 0.28 +/- 0.12, and 0.45 +/- 0.26 for patients with laryngeal cancer, hypopharyngeal cancer, healthy controls, and blood relatives respectively. A significant difference of b/c value was found between patients and controls (P < 0.01), but not between patients and their blood relatives (P > 0.05). Our findings suggest that genetic predisposition plays an important role in the eitiology of laryngeal and hypopharyngeal cancers. Both patients with laryngeal or hypopharyngeal cancers and their blood relatives should be considered as in high cancer risk.
authors.affiliation: Affiliated Hospital of Shandong Medical University, Jinan.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D019457:Chromosome Breakage; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D006801:Humans; D007012:Hypopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*; D007822:Laryngeal Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors