The frequency of micronuclei in bone-marrow erythroblasts during the treatment of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

We scored the frequency of micronuclei in bone-marrow erythroblasts from 41 patients with childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (childhood ALL) at diagnosis and during their 2-year treatment cycle in order to see whether there would be any variation in the cytogenetic damage induced by chemotherapy. We found that most patients showed the same trend in micronucleus frequency, with a progressive rise from the diagnostic slide through induction to pre-intensification and completion of treatment. The rise was attributed to damage to the erythroblasts occurring as a result of chemotherapy, and was judged not prognostically significant in this study.