Analysis of TCR-mutant lymphocyte frequency in cancer patients before and after chemoradiotherapy
Comparative analysis of frequency of lymphocytes, bearing mutations at T-cell receptor locus (TCR), in patients with Hodgkin<sup>'</sup>s lymphoma was conducted before treatment and after chemoradiotherapy. It was shown that 20 % of patients before the treatment had increased frequencies of mutant cells, which are comparable with the results obtained for patients with malignant tumors of other localizations. Significant genotoxic effect of anticancer therapy was found after the treatment. A tendency to increase of the mutant cell frequency was observed in patients receiving more extensive-field radiotherapy. It was shown high individual variability (more than 7-fold differences) of this parameter of somatic mutagenesis at the same time after the treatment. These data suggest the possibility of using TCR-mutant cell frequency for individual assessment of risk for secondary malignancies.