Glycophorin A mutant frequency in radiation workers at the nuclear power plants and a hospital

We studied to assess the validity of the glycophorin A (GPA) mutant assay as a biological marker of the cumulative effects of chronic low doses of ionizing radiation. In 144 nuclear power plants workers and 32 hospital workers, information on confounding factors, such as age and cigarette smoking, was obtained through a self-administered questionnaire. The information on physical exposure doses was obtained from the registries for radiation exposure monitoring and control at each facility. The range of cumulative exposure doses were 0-12.02cGy. GPA mutant assay was performed by the BR6 method with modification using a FACScan flow cytometer. Potential confounders, such as, age and cigarette smoking habits showed increasing trends with GPA variants, but were not of statistical significance. The hospital workers showed higher frequency of the GPA NO variant than nuclear power plant workers. Significant dose-response relationships were found between cumulative exposure to radiation and variants levels by simple and multiple linear regression models. The slope of regression equation of the dose-response of nuclear power plants workers was much smaller than that of hospital workers. These findings suggest that there may be dose-rate effects. In a population exposed to chronic low-dose radiation, the GPA assay shows potential to be used as an effective biologic marker for assessing the cumulative exposure dose although it could not be able to see a dose relation below 10cGy of cumulative exposure dose.