Assessment of micronuclei counts as tumor marker in cervical carcinogenesis: A follow up study.

OBJECTIVE: Micronuclei counts were performed in cervical smears with low grade squamous intraepithelial lesions of cervix (LSIL) to assess its potentiality as tumor marker in cervical carcinogenesis. METHODS: The cases studied were from the ongoing rural cervical cancer screening in west Lucknow, India. Micronuclei counts were performed in the cervical smears of 100 LSIL cases and number of cells with micronuclei were defined as micronucleated cells (MNC) and the number of micronuclei per 1000 cells as MNC score. Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) - DNA testing was also done in 100 LSIL cases by Gene Nav qPCR test. RESULTS: A high MNC score was found in 20 of the 100 LSIL cases while the counts were low in the remaining 80. Persistence of LSIL was seen in 19 of the 20 LSIL cases with high MNC score while only 6 cases showed persistence in 80 cases with low MNC score. The persistence of LSIL was very high in cases with high MNC score. The multiple high risk HPV types like 18, 31, 33 and 35 were seen in 12 of the 100 LSIL cases and a high positivity rate was seen in women with high MNC score. The persistence of LSIL was also higher with HPV positivity. CONCLUSION: The study revealed correlation between high MNC score, persistence of LSIL and HPV positivity. Hence MNC score can prove to be very useful in discriminating high risk LSIL cases which are less likely to regress and possibly may progress to HSIL or carcinoma.