COMET AND MICRONUCLEUS ASSAYS DO NOT CORRELATE EXTENT OF DNA DAMAGE WITH CLINICAL STAGING OF ORAL CAVITY SQUAMOUS CELL CARCINOMA

Introduction: Oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma is the sixth most frequent malignant neoplasm worldwide. Its main etiological factor is smoking associated with alcohol consumption. Objective: To evaluate the applicability of the comet and micronucleus assays and the relationship between cell damage intensity and oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma (OCSCC) clinical stages. Methods: A total of 44 individuals,24 oral cancer patients and 20 healthy volunteers, participated in the study. Exfoliated cells were collected from the oral cavity using a wooden spatula. All samples were analyzed by the comet (CA), micronucleus (MNA) and cell death (CDA) assays. Results: The diagnosis of OCSCC increases the frequency of genotoxic damage (CA – 3.21x; MNA – 3.93x); however, it was not possible to establish a correlation between frequency of DNA damage and disease staging. The CDA was not effective for the proposed biomonitoring. Conclusion: The CA andMNA were considered adequate for biomonitoring DNA damage. With the current design, the applicability of these assays to correlate DNA/cell damage extent and OCSCC clinical staging could not be demonstrated. Nevertheless, further studies should be conducted with larger sample sizes to increase the statistical power of these findings.