Cytogenetic abnormalities in colon cancer patients: A comparison of T- and B-Lymphocytes

Cytogenetic analysis of peripheral blood lymphocytes of 19 colorectal cancer patients was carried out in short term blood cultures (T-cells) as well as in Epstein-Barr virus transformed B-cell lymphoblastoid cell lines. One hundred Giemsa-banded metaphases from the T lymphocytes and 50 metaphases from the B lymphocytes of each patient were evaluated for cytogenetic abnormalities. Clonality was not observed in every paired sample. Structural and/or numerical aberrations were most frequent in chromosomes no 1, no2, no5, no7, no9, no12, no14, no17, no18 and no21. Aberrations among these chromosomes could be observed individually in either of the cultures, which proves that the analysis of both cultures (T and B cells) is complementary to each other. In some cases involving multiple primary cancers it was interesting that the specific chromosomal change, crucial for a particular malignancy, was identified only in the lymphoblastoid cell line analysis. This supports the notion that B-cell analysis can serve as a useful adjunct to the study of short-term blood cultures and also poses a question as to whether the specific chromosomal changes observed in the analysis are confined to the B-cell lineage.