Abstract
Aim of this study was to evaluate the association between multiple essential microelements exposure and the aggressive clinicopathologic characteristics of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). The concentrations of 10 essential microelements in urine [cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo), selenium (Se), strontium (Sr), zinc (Zn), and iodine (I)] were measured in 608 patients newly diagnosed with PTC, including 154 males and 454 females. Chi square test and Wilcoxon rank sum test were used to compare general characteristics among males and females. Multivariate logistic regression was used to evaluate the associations between essential microelements and PTC clinicopathologic characteristics in single- and multi-microelement models. In this study, we only observed that the frequency of lymph node metastasis in males was higher than in females, and males had higher levels of zinc than females, but males had lower levels of iodine than females. It was found that high levels of Fe were associated with decreased risk of PTC tumor size > 1 cm, capsular invasion, and advanced T stage (T3/4a/4b). High levels of Co and Mo were associated with decreased risk of capsular invasion and lymph node metastasis, respectively. However, high levels of Mn and Sr were associated with increased risk of capsular invasion and multifocality respectively, and both were associated with increased risk of advanced T stage (T3/4a/4b). These findings indicated that certain essential microelements might have potential effects on PTC progression and aggressiveness. Further studies are required to confirm these findings.
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Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number: 81373071); the Project for Top Disciplinary Talents of Majors in Universities of Anhui Province (Grant Number: gxbjZD09); and the National College Students' Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program (Grant Number: 201910366030).
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MJH Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing—original draft. JLH Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing—review & editing. XRT Investigation, Data curation. WJY: Investigation, Data curation. HHZ Investigation, Data curation. GAL Investigation, Data curation. FH Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Writing—review & editing.
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10534_2021_317_MOESM1_ESM.tif
Supplementary Fig. 1 Odds ratios (95% CI) of clinicopathological characteristics of PTC according to each microelement in the single-microelement model, adjusted for age, gender, and body mass index: tumor size (> 1 cm vs. 1 cm), capsular invasion (positive vs. negative), multifocality (positive vs. negative), T stage (T3/4a/4b vs. T1/2), and N stage (N1 vs. N0). Natural logarithm transformation had been carried out on all microelements. Q, quartile (TIF 16535 kb)
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Hu, MJ., He, JL., Tong, XR. et al. Associations between essential microelements exposure and the aggressive clinicopathologic characteristics of papillary thyroid cancer. Biometals 34, 909–921 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10534-021-00317-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10534-021-00317-w