Author(s): A. Manoj, K Ramachandra Rao, B. Vishnu Bhat, C Venkatesh, Zachariah Bobby, Harichandrakumar KT
This study was conducted to evaluate the level of DNA damage in perinatal asphyxia and correlate it with severity and outcome. Eighty term neonates with asphyxia and sixty term control babies participated in this case control study. Blood samples were collected within 24 hours of birth for comet assay , micronucleus assay , karyotyping and serum malondeadehyde (MDA) estimation. There was significant difference in tail length and percentage of DNA in tail of comet between expired and survived cases (75.857±6.568 vs 37.541±11.8 ). Micronucleus score was significantly different in expired and survived cases( 6.341 ±2.563 vs 2.542 ±1.416) There was significant difference in mean frequency of chromosomal aberration and serum MDAlevel in cases and controls ( 5.058 ± 1.349 vs 2.699±1.330) and (8.268±0.7265 vs 5.782±1.458) respectively. Receiver operating charac-teristic (ROC) curve of tail length , % DNA in tail of comets, micronucleus score, chromo-somal aberration and serum MDA level showed area under curve 0.888, 0.876, 0.876 and 0.890 with cut off value of 61.33 μm, 52.46 %, 4.5 MN , 4.50 CA and 7.48 μmol/lit respec-tively that can predict the death due to perinatal asphyxia.