Twenty years of FISH-based translocation analysis for retrospective ionizing radiation biodosimetry.

Purpose: The fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) technique, which easily detects reciprocal translocations, is currently used to estimate doses in retrospective biological dosimetry, after suspected accidental overexposure to ionizing radiation (IR). This study of 42 cases aimed to verify the appropriateness of this assay for radiation dose reconstruction, compared to the dicentric assay, and to evaluate other limitations.

Material And Methods: We labeled chromosomes 2, 4, and 12 by 3-color FISH painting to detect translocations on lymphocytes of patients with suspected past IR overexposure.