Study of selected trace elements in cancerous and non-cancerous human breast tissues from Sudanese subjects using instrumental neutron activation analysis

This study was performed to investigate the influence of cancer on selected trace elements among Sudanese patients with confirmed breast cancer. Instrumental neutron activation analysis was used to estimate contents of Se, Zn, Fe, Cr, Rb, Cs, Co and Sc in 40 subjects. Wilcoxon signed ranks test was used to examine if there was any difference in the concentrations of elements from normal and malignant tissues. It was found that Se, Zn and Cr elements from the malignant tissues are significantly elevated (P b 0.05) compared to the normal tissue. The results obtained have shown consistency with results obtained by some previous studies.