AbstractBackground: Micronucleus in buccal mucosa exfoliative cells is essential to have reliable and relevant minimally invasive biomarkers to improve the implementation of biomonitoring, diagnostics, and treatment of disease caused by, or associated with genetic damage. Methods: The present retrospective study was carried in 100 persons in which 25 persons were alcohol consumers, 25 persons were tobacco smokers, 25 persons were both alcohol consumers and tobacco smokers and 25 persons were control group, in the department of pathology, Narayana Medical College & Hospital, Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, India, during the period of January 2016 to December 2016. Cytological smears was fixed in ethyl alcohol and then stained with Hematoxylin & Eosin staining technique and assessed for micronuclei count. Result: The micronucleus count in “A” group was a mean count of 4.89 micronuclei, where as the mean micronucleus count in “S” group was 5.36. The “A+ S” group had the mean micronucleus count of 5.98 and the control group had a mean micronucleus count of 3.67. Conclusion: The present study was undertaken to observe the micronucleus count and micronucleus index among smokers (S group), alcoholics (A group) and smokers and alcoholics together (A+S group) and compare with controls (C group) that had no such life style habits. In this study there was a significant difference between smokers and controls which seem to be more prominent in cases of both smoking and alcoholic group when compared to controls and the significance of alcohol only, was not well proven.
Keywords: Buccal Mucosa; Micronucleus.