We examined 20 smokers and 20 nonsmokers for a possible increase in sister chromatid exchanges. The people examined were carefully matched for age, sex and working environment, on that in each smoker-nonsmoker pair the only difference would be the smoking habit. The measurements were double blind. We found an average number of 5.8 sister chromatid exchanges per metaphase in nonsmokers and an average number of 7.9 sister chromatid exchanges per metaphase in smokers. The difference was statistically significant (p < .002).
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