Trace elements and electrolytes disturbances in cancerous patients: A prospective comparison study

Abstract

Author(s): Enas Khudhair Al-Bdaer* and Ahmed Salih Alshewered

Cancer is still the leading cause of most morbidity and mortality in many countries worldwide. The abnormalities in electrolyte concentrations including hypokalaemia or hyperkalaemia, hypomagnesemia or hypomagnesemia, hypocalcaemia or hypercalcemia, and trace elements deficient can occur due to cancer itself or due to its management like the use of chemotherapy. A prospective comparison study was carried out on newly diagnosed cancer patients before and after receives cytotoxic agents for a period of four months from March 2020 to July 2020. A total of 100 newly diagnosed cancerous patients enrolling and recruited. Demographic characters of patients like age, gender, address, jobs, co-morbid diseases, BSA, cancer types, and chemotherapy regimens were collected from the medical records of the participants. The Calcium Colorimetric Assay Kit, Magnesium Assay Kit, Zinc Assay Kit, and Potassium (K) turbid metric Assay Kit were used. In this study, 80(80%) were females and 20(20%) were males enrolled, with a mean age was 46.35±13.8 years. 79/100 (79%) of participants lived in Basra city. The mean body surface area (BSA) was 1.7±0.23 m2. The majority were females with breast cancers about 56(56%). Regarding chemotherapy regimens, the AC+Taxen protocol was mostly used as 54%. There was no difference between pre and post-chemotherapy concentrations of calcium. The same for unchanged potassium concentrations. There was a significant decline in magnesium concentration in pre- and post-chemotherapy (2.23±0.34 vs 1.88±0.37 mg/dL), but this deviation still within the normal range with a strong significant association (P<0.000). Besides, the mean zinc concentration dropping from (90.61±13.05 μg/dL) to (78.51±13.56 μg/dL), which was highly statistically differences (P<0.000). These findings could be explained by the fact that most if not all those patients took supplement either described by physicians or by themselves before and during cancer management. Differences in the results between the pre and post-chemotherapy may be unchanged or there was a large decrement in electrolytes level, but this is still within normal. This may be partially due to the replacement supplement of elements before and after treatment.

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