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Title: |
Argyrophilic Nucleolar Organizer Region Counts in Exfoliative Cytology of Buccal Mucosa from Opium Addicts, Smokers and Nonsmokers | |||||||||||||||||||
| Authors: | Maryam Kadivar, M.D., and Mehrnoush Attar, M.D. | |||||||||||||||||||
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Objective: To compare the argyrophilic nucleolar organizer region (AgNOR) count of cells collected from the normal buccal mucosa of cigarette smokers, opium addicts and nonsmokers.
Study Design: Exfoliative cytologic smears of buccal mucosa from 25 smokers, 25 addicts and 25 nonsmokers were stained for AgNORs according to the Ploton‘s method. The AgNOR count was performed on 100 cells. These AgNOR counts were compared and analyzed using the SPSS 13 program (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.) and one-way ANOVA test. Results: Statistically, the highest mean AgNOR count (mAgNOR) was in cells from opium addicts (9.21±2.95) and the lowest in cells from nonsmokers (4.35±1.62) (p < 0.0001). For smokers, this value was in midrange (5.68±2.17). The percentage of cells with 6 or more AgNORs (pAgNOR ?6) was the best discriminator among the different groups (p<0.0001). Conclusion: Cigarette smoking and particularly opium abuse increases the rate of cellular proliferation in cells of normal buccal mucosa. (Anal Quant Cytol Histol 2008;30:274-278) |
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| Keywords: | argyrophilic nucleolar organizer regions; buccal mucosa; carcinoma, squamous cell; cytology; smoking | |||||||||||||||||||
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