Prostatic Tissue Levels of 43 Trace Elements in Patients with Prostate Adenocarcinoma

Abstract

Adenocarcinoma of prostate gland is an internationally important health problem in men, particularly in developed countries. The aim of this exploratory study was to evaluate whether significant changes in the prostatic tissue levels of trace elements exist in the malignantly transformed prostate. Prostatic tissue levels of 43 trace elements were prospectively evaluated in 36 patients with prostate adenocarcinoma and 37 healthy males. Measurements were performed using a combination of non-destructive and destructive methods: instrumental neutron activation analysis and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, respectively. Tissue samples were divided into two portions. One was used for morphological study while the other was intended for trace element analysis. The reliability of difference in the results between normal and cancerous prostate tissues was evaluated by Student's t-test. It was found that the contents of Ag, Al, Au, B, Be, Br, Ce, Cr, Dy, Er, Fe, Gd, Hg, Li, Mn, Nd, Ni, Pr, Sb, Sn, Th, Tl, Y, and Zr were significantly higher while those of Cd, Co, Rb, Sc, Se, and Zn were significantly lower in cancerous tissues than in normal tissues. Moreover, it was shown that malignant transformation significantly changed the relationships of trace elements in prostate. Thus, in adenocarcinoma transformed prostate tissue the trace element metabolism is significantly disturbed.

A Systematic Review of the Antimony Content of the Normal Human Prostate Gland

“…A total of 1998 publications were primarily obtained, of which 1975 irrelevant papers were excluded. Thus, 23 studies were ultimately selected according to eligibility criteria that investigated Sb levels in tissue of normal prostates (Table 1) and these 23 papers [7,9,11,13,14,24,26,28,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54] comprised the material on which the review was based.…”

“…[9,11,14,26,45,47,[49][50][51][52][53][54] shoved that in case of Sb it is possible to avoid uncertainties connected with acid digestion. It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude…”

Twenty Chemical Element Contents in Normal and Cancerous Thyroid

“…In our previous study a significant positive correlation between age and some chemical element contents in the thyroid was observed [23][24][25][26][27][28]. It was concluded that an age-dependent excess of intra-thyroidal I and zinc (Zn) concentration are probably one of the factors acting in both initiation and promotion stages of thyroid carcinogenesis [9,24,25], as it was earlier shown by us for I in thyroid and for Zn in prostate gland [29][30][31][32][33][34]. Moreover, it seems fair to suppose that besides I and Zn, many other chemical elements also play a role in the pathophysiology of the thyroid.…”

“…water volume, including the blood volumes, in tissues [79]. Cancerous tissues are predominantly highly vascularized lesions [80][81][82][83][84][85]. Thus, it is possible to speculate that thyroid malignant tumors are characterized by an increase of the mean value of the Cl mass fraction because the level of tumor vascularization is higher than that in normal thyroid tissue.…”

Levels of chemical element contents in thyroid as potential biomarkers for cancer diagnosis (a preliminary study)

“…In our previous study a significant positive correlation between age and some chemical element contents in the thyroid was observed [23][24][25][26][27][28] . It was concluded that an age-dependent excess of intra-thyroidal I and Zn concentration is probably one of the factors acting in both initiation and promotion stages of thyroid carcinogenesis [9,24,25] , as it was earlier shown by us for I in thyroid and for Zn in prostate gland [29][30][31][32][33][34] . Moreover, it seems fair to suppose that besides I and Zn,many other chemical elementsalso play arolein the pathophysiology of the thyroid.…”