PLoS ONE (Jan 2013)

A low selenium level is associated with lung and laryngeal cancers.

  • Katrzyna Jaworska,
  • Satish Gupta,
  • Katarzyna Durda,
  • Magdalena Muszyńska,
  • Grzegorz Sukiennicki,
  • Ewa Jaworowska,
  • Tomasz Grodzki,
  • Mieczysław Sulikowski,
  • Piotr Waloszczyk,
  • Janusz Wójcik,
  • Jakub Lubiński,
  • Cezary Cybulski,
  • Tadeusz Dębniak,
  • Marcin Lener,
  • Antoni W Morawski,
  • Karol Krzystolik,
  • Steven A Narod,
  • Ping Sun,
  • Jan Lubiński,
  • Anna Jakubowska

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0059051
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 3
p. e59051

Abstract

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PurposeIt has been suggested that selenium deficiency is a risk factor for several cancer types. We conducted a case-control study in Szczecin, a region of northwestern Poland, on 95 cases of lung cancer, 113 cases of laryngeal cancer and corresponding healthy controls.MethodsWe measured the serum level of selenium and established genotypes for four variants in four selenoprotein genes (GPX1, GPX4, TXNRD2 and SEP15). Selenium levels in the cases were measured after diagnosis but before treatment. We calculated the odds of being diagnosed with lung or laryngeal cancer, conditional on selenium level and genotype.ResultsAmong lung cancer cases, the mean selenium level was 63.2 µg/l, compared to a mean level of 74.6 µg/l for their matched controls (pConclusionA selenium level below 60 µg/l is associated with a high risk of both lung and laryngeal cancer.