CYTOGENETIC MONITORING OF FARMERS EXPOSED TO PESTICIDES IN COLOMBIA

We have monitored 30 pesticide-exposed workers and 30 matched controls for expression of chromosome aberrations (CA) and sister chromatid exchanges (SCE) in their lymphocytes. Peripheral blood cultures were set up within 3 hr after the collection of samples, and four cultures were set up from each donor. For CA analysis, 100 complete metaphase cells from each donor were evaluated. For the SCE assay, 50 complete metaphase cells from each donor were analyzed. The CA and SCE data were analyzed for differences between the two groups using the chi 2 and the Student's t-test, respectively. From the CA analysis it was obvious that the overwhelming majority of aberrations were chromatid breaks and isochromatid breaks; therefore, only these data are presented and used for statistical analysis. Isochromatid breaks were counted as two breaks each and chromatid breaks as one in calculating the total chromatid break frequencies. Statistical evaluation of the data indicates that there is no significant difference (p > ...