Serum zinc levels and breast intraductal neoplasm

ABSTRACT

Objective: To verify whether patients with microcalcifications in mammography (BI-RADS 3 or 4) and diagnosis of breast intraductal neoplasm had serum zinc levels lower than those patients with benign diagnosis. Methodology: Analyzed were patients with first-time attendance in the IBCC clinic who presented microcalcifications and submitted to biopsy investigation. Before the biopsy was performed, patients responded to a questionnaire with questions that included age, menarche age, age at first childbirth, total time of breast-feeding and breast cancer antecedents. Patients were also submitted to preoperative examinations, including serum zinc level assessment by atomic absorption method. Statistical analysis between the two groups (control group with benign results; study group with breast intraductal neoplasm) was done through Student's t-test and chi-square test, with an admitted 5% level of significance. Results: Forty-seven patients met the study adopted criteria. The control group enrolled 28 subjects and the study group included 19 patients. The authors did not find significant differences between the two groups in the studied parameters. The serum zinc levels did not show significant differences. However, of all studied parameters of both groups, the serum zinc levels were of higher significance. Conclusion: In spite of the tendency of lower levels of serum zinc in the study group (patients with intraductal breast cancer), no statistically significant differences (p=0.25) were found in the present study. Therefore, this parameter could not be used as a conclusive predictive marker for risk assessment. Since the number of studied cases was small, a larger number of cases should be studied in order to clarify this tendency of slightly lower levels of serum zinc in patients.