The prevalence of low selenium levels in newly diagnosed pediatric cancer patients

Sergey Postovsky*, Myriam Weyl Ben Arush, Eric Diamond, Ronit Elhasid, Gideon Shoshani, Raanan Shamir

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

Low selenium (Se) levels have been found in assoiciation with high incidences of various types of adult cancer. Much less is known about this issue among pediatric cancer patients. Forty-two pediatric patients with a variety of newly diagnosed malignancies were divided into two groups, 20 with localized disease (LD) and 22 with widespread disease (WSD). Analysis of serum collected before the commencement of treatment showed that half the patients had low Se serum levels, lower and more common in WSD than in LD. There was no significant difference in the prevalence of low albumin levels among patients with low Se levels, and most of the newly diagnosed children did not suffer from malnutrition. It was concluded that Se deficiency is common among newly diagnosed pediatric cancer patients, Se levels are lower in WSD than LD, and low Se levels are more prevalent in WSD patients than in LD patients.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)273-280
Number of pages8
JournalPediatric Hematology and Oncology
Volume20
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2003
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Incidence
  • Newly diagnosed
  • Pediatric cancer patients
  • Selenium deficiency

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