Study on trace elements behaviour in cancerous and healthy tissues of colon, breast and stomach: Total reflection X-ray fluorescence applications

In this work Total-reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) was used to analyse healthy and cancerous tissues of the same individual along several contiguous thin sections of each tissue. Thirty two samples (16 pairs) of breast tissue, 30 samples (15 pairs) of intestine tissue and 10 samples (5 pairs) of stomach tissue were analysed. The samples were obtained in Civil Hospitals of Germany (Dortmund) and Portugal (Lisbon). The elemental distribution of P, S, Cl, K, Ca, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, Se, Br, Rb, Sr and Pb in these samples was studied. Descriptive statistics based on bar graphics and hypotheses tests and also an automatic classification based on hierarchical grouping analysis was used for the several analysed tissues. It was shown that the behaviour of the elements is tissue dependent. Some elements, like P and K exhibit the same behaviour in all the analysed tissue types. They have increased concentrations in all cancerous tissues. Unlike, other elements like Br show completely different behaviour depending on the tissue: similar concentration in healthy and cancerous stomach, decreased levels in colon cancerous tissues and enhanced concentrations in breast was observed. Moreover cancer tissues present decreased Se concentrations on colon and increased on breast.