Smokeless tobacco (SLT) consumption is presumed to be one of the major causes of high incidence of oral cancer in India. The present study aimed to document various types of SLT products consumed and their potential impact on the genome instability on the population from Assam state in Northeast India. A cross-sectional study (n = 5000) showed that 60.56 % of the study population consumed at least one of the three forms (sadagura, zarda and khaini) of SLT of which 52.0 % were only sadagura users. Genotoxicity assessment using buccal cytome assay in 240 age and sex matched volunteers revealed that except for zarda, other forms of SLT induced significantly higher incidence micronuclei in the buccal epithelial cells compared to the control individuals. Similar effects were also observed in other cytome parameters related to cell proliferation, cytokinesis defects and cell death. Significantly higher incidence of micronucleus was observed among sadagura and khaini users in lymphocyte cytokinesis-blocked micronucleus assay. The addition of lime in sadagura increased the pH and anion levels which possibly result in higher absorption and may lead to the development of cellular anomalies.

无烟烟草 (SLT) 消费被认为是印度口腔癌高发的主要原因之一。本研究旨在记录消费的各种类型的 SLT 产品及其对印度东北部阿萨姆邦人口基因组不稳定性的潜在影响。一项横断面研究 ( n  = 5000) 表明，60.56% 的研究人群至少消费了三种形式的 SLT （sadagura、 z arda和khaini）中的一种，其中 52.0% 只是sadagura使用者。在 240 名年龄和性别匹配的志愿者中使用颊细胞组测定法进行的基因毒性评估显示，除了zarda，与对照个体相比，其他形式的 SLT 在颊上皮细胞中诱导显着更高发生率的微核。在与细胞增殖、胞质分裂缺陷和细胞死亡相关的其他细胞组参数中也观察到类似的影响。在淋巴细胞胞质分裂阻断微核试验中，在sadagura和khaini使用者中观察到显着更高的微核发生率。在sadagura中添加石灰会增加pH值和阴离子水平，这可能导致更高的吸收并可能导致细胞异常的发展。