Micronucleus Assay in Cell Phone Users: Importance of Oral Mucosa Screening

BACKGROUND: One of the concerns of cell phone users is prolonged exposure to harmful and potentially carcinogenic waves. This study was aimed to investigate the correlation between amount of cell phone use and related factors with percentage of micronucleus containing cells. METHODS: This descriptive study was conducted on selected patients referring to Islamic Azad University Faculty of Dentistry using cell phones regarding related inclusion and exclusion criteria. Papanicolaou staining method was approached for mucosal smears of samples and frequency of micronucleus containing cells and also, frequency of micronucleus in each cell were recorded for each sample; then, correlation of these findings with amount of daily cell phone usage was statistically analyzed using the calculation of Pearson correlation coefficient and preparation of regression analysis (backward) with significant level of lower than 0.05. RESULTS: Of 100 samples, the frequency of micronucleus containing cells was 2.94% ± 1.89% and the frequency of micronucleus in each cell was 1.02% ± 1.68%. The amount of cell phone usage was significantly correlated with the frequency of micronucleus containing cells (r = 0.70, P = 0.0001) and also with the frequency of micronucleus in each cell (r = 0.57, P = 0.0001). Also, age and sex were not significantly correlated with the frequency of micronucleus containing cells (P = 0.47 and 0.32) and also with the frequency of micronucleus in each cell, respectively (P = 0.16 and 0.27). CONCLUSIONS: The present study showed that the increased amount of cell phone usage had a strong and significant correlation with the higher frequency of the micronucleus containing cells and the higher frequency of micronucleus in each cell in the buccal mucosa. Also, the related factors as age and sex were not significantly correlated with the frequency of micronucleus containing buccal mucosa cells.