KAMEL AHMAD JABER SALEH
Acta Pharmaceutica Sciencia - 2010;52(4):453-460
The aim of this study is to use the micronuclei from exfoliated buccal cells to investigate the synergistic effect of Catha edulis (khat) chewing and cigarette smoking, as well as the interaction between two. To investigate the genotoxicity of Catha edulis (khat) and smoking combination on exfoliated buccal epithelial cells, a micronucleus (MN) test was carried out on south-west Saudi Arabia population. Twenty male individual with age 20-25 divided into four groups; first group non smokers and non khat chewers (control), second group was smokers but non khat chewers, third group included khat chewers but non smokers, whenever the last group contains both smokers and khat chewers. Three slides were prepared from every individual scored on 2000 epithelial cells. Results showed the incidence of MN (p>0.05) in the three groups (2, 3 and 4) compared to the control (group1). Moreover, the combination of khat and smoking almost duplicate genotoxicity effect. The obtained results confirmed that khat and smoking combination can induce micronucleus which might result in mouth cancer in advance.
