Genotoxic effects of anaesthetics

Chronic occupational exposure to low concentrations of anaesthetic waste gases may entail adverse health effects. Genotoxicity tests may give information about the risk before it turns into a serious health hazard. It has been shown that anaesthetics cause DNS single-strand breaks in persons administering anaesthesia. Although DNA single-strand breaks may be reversible, a part of them will not be repaired, which leads to irreversible damages. Some damages may be seen using cytogenetic methods. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of exposure to anaesthetic (nitrous oxide and halothane) in a group of 28 operating room medical workers. To do that we used the single cell alkaline gel electrophoresis assay (comet assay) and cytochalasine B blocked micronucleus test (MN). The results were compared with those of 28 control subjects who were matched for sex, age and smoking habit. The statistical significance of the results was determined using the one-way ANOVA test. The results show a significant increase in tail length (20.82) and tail moment (0.68) as well as in the micronuclei frequency (26.93 ‰ ) in exposed subjects with respect to controls (TL= 16.16 ; TM=0.38 ; MN= 11.89 ‰ ). The exposure duration was significantly associated with the frequency of micronuclei, while age was significant at the P< 0.01 level in the tail length. Our results support the use of genotoxicity tests in monitoring occupational exposure to anaesthetics.