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VIEW ALL NEWSSelenium may protect against bladder cancer
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The trace mineral selenium may play a preventive role in certain genetic types of bladder cancer or within certain populations, according to the results of a study published in an Online First issue of Cancer Prevention Research.
Dr. Margaret R. Karagas, from Dartmouth Medical School in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and colleagues analyzed selenium concentrations from the toenails of 767 people with newly diagnosed bladder cancer and from 1,108 individuals from the general population.
They found that the average toenail selenium concentration was significantly lower among bladder cancer patients than individuals in the general population.
Overall, a higher toenail selenium concentration was not significantly associated with a lower risk of bladder cancer.
However, there was a significant inverse association within specific subgroups, namely, women, moderate smokers and those with tumors that contained a protein called p53. Compared with patients with the highest levels of selenium, those with the lowest levels had an increased risk of 34 percent, 39 percent and 43 percent, respectively.
"Experimental data indicate potential anticarcinogenic effects of selenium, yet the exact molecular mechanism(s) remains unknown," Karagas and colleagues note in their report.
"Ultimately, if it is true that selenium can prevent a certain subset of individuals, like women, from developing bladder cancer, or prevent certain types of tumors, such as those evolving through the p53 pathway, from developing, it gives us clues about how the tumors could be prevented in the future" and may potentially lead to drug treatments that can prevent bladder cancer, Karagas added in a statement issued by the American Association for Cancer Research.
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