To the Editors:Ellahuene et al. (1) wrote in the abstract that “The objective of this study was to establish if the alkaline SCGE assay in whole blood cells gives similar results as the same method in isolated lymphocytes, because whole blood cells are simpler and more economical to use, specifically in human genotoxic biomonitoring.” It sounds strange because either isolated lymphocytes or whole blood is indicated as a source of human cells in the widely cited protocol of SCGE assay, implying that both options are equally suitable for biomonitoring (2). Successful application of whole blood cells in the comet assay was well documented—I randomly found some articles from Medline concerning both humans (3–5) and mice (6).

The data concerning the influence of smoking on DNA damage of blood cells are very contradictory (7). Two recently published articles...

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