Analysis of the selenium (Se) content in the toenail of colorectal cancer patients

Selenium (Se) is a trace element that plays an important role in the biological functions of the human body. Toenails are considered as suitable materials for finding the relationship between trace element content with human diseases. The goal of this study is to analyze and evaluate the Se content in the toenails of colorectal cancer patients in order to find out the risk of cancer in human. The Se content in the toenails of 60 colorectal cancer patients (63.3% for men) and 22 healthy persons (54.5% for men) was analyzed by the k0-standardization method of the instrumental neutron activation analysis technique. The results of the analysis showed that Se contents ib healthy persons were 1.13 mg/g and 1.32 mg/g for men and women, respectively; for colon cancer patients were 0.70 mg/g and 0.84 mg/g for men and women, respectively; for rectal cancer patients 0.86 mg/g and 0.82 mg/g for men and women, respectively. By the statistical analysis, it showed that the Se content was significantly different between the patients and the normal patients (p<0.05), but there was no significant difference between women and men. The conclusion of this study was that the Se content in the toenails of colorectal cancer patients is lower than that of normal patients.