Normal sister chromatid exchange frequency in long-term survivors with acute leukemia.

We hypothesized that the sister chromatid exchanges assay in acute leukemia long-term survivors may detect: (a) long-term effects of combined chemo- and radiotherapy; and possibly (b) those individuals with inherently deficient DNA repair. Accordingly, we determined the sister chromatid exchanges frequency in 26 blood specimens from 24 acute leukemia long-term survivors (patients) and 14 blood specimens from 13 control subjects (controls). The patients consisted of 23 children with acute lymphocytic and one child with acute myelocytic leukemia. The median length of chemotherapy was 5 years. Eighteen of the 24 patients also received prophylactic fractional central nervous system irradiation for the first 3 years of treatment, and one patient received therapeutic irradiation to the central nervous system. The median off-therapy period at the time of study was 2.5 years with a range of 0 to 7.5 years. The controls consisted of the parents of the patients and laboratory personnel. A mean exchange score per cell was established for each specimen (25 to 30 cells/specimen were scored), and it ranged from 3.0 to 9.7 in the patients and from 3.0 to 11.5 in the controls. A mean +/- S.D. calculated from those means was 6.0 +/- 1.8 for the patients and 6.9 +/- 2.8 for the controls. They were not significantly different. We conclude that chemo- and radiotherapy produced no persistent DNA alterations detectable by this method.