Radiation‐induced changes in oral carcinoma cells – a multiparametric evaluation

The aim of this study was to see whether serial cytological evaluation of various cellular abnormalities in tumours from patients receiving fractionated radiotherapy can predict radio‐response in oral carcinoma. Cytological assessment was carried out in scrape smears collected prior to and during the course of radiotherapy in 68 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity planned for radical radiotherapy with accelerated fraction schedule. Smears were evaluated for a set of 15 radiation‐induced cellular abnormalities. The relationship between the cellular alterations and the cumulative radiation dose was analysed by Kruskal–Wallis one‐way anova. The results showed that among the various quantifiable changes that occur in irradiated cancer cells, karyolysis, karyorrhexis, pyknosis, cytolysis, multinucleation, micronucleation and nuclear budding show significant increase depending on the dose of radiation. The radio‐resistant group of patients exhibited a lesser degree of change compared with the radio‐sensitive group. This suggests that radio‐resistance may be due to the defective induction of cell damage and that these cytological features may have potential use as predictive markers of radio‐sensitivity in oral carcinoma.