Abstract
Objective:
Biomass fuels are used by most of the people living in the rural areas (wood, agricultural waste and dung are used by about half of the world population) as a major, and most of the time as the only source of domestic energy for cooking and heating. Sister-Chromatid Exchange (SCE) values are analyzed in our study, to determine the mutagenic effects of exposure to biomass fuels.
Design and Patients:
Sister-chromatid exchange analysis has been performed on peripheral lymphocytes by conventional sito- genetics method. In this study, two groups as 20 non-smoker subjects who are healthy women between 25 and 70 years of age, and have exposed to biomass for ten years, 3-5 hours per day, and 20 healthy women at the same age who did not exposed to biomass fuels were evaluated.
Measurements and Results:
The mean SCE frequency was increased significantly in the study group in contrast to the control group in statistical evaluation, which is applied by the Man- Whitney U- test (p<0.05).
Conclusion:
We suggest that, our findings support a transient increase in SCE after exposure to biomass fuels and there are constant and harmful effects of biomass fuels on increased SCE frequency.
Keywords: Biomass, organic and inorganic fuels, SCE (sister - chromatid - exchange)
