ABSTRACT
Cancer is a disease that effects cell metabolism causing an imbalance in the health of the patient. On the other hand, malnutrition, presented by oncological patients, is caused by both the disease and its treatment. Some serum biochemical parameters cannot be determined by the traditional method of laboratory blood analysis (spectrophotometry). Among the various techniques that could be used for blood biochemical analysis, we opted for the Z-scan technique, due to its sensitivity to the reading of blood components. Our objective in this work was to compare the data obtained by the Z-scan technique and the spectrophotometry of the serological samples of children with solid tumors and leukemia under treatment, receiving or not selenium supplementation in a randomized, double-blind clinical trial. The biochemical parameters were read based on blood. These blood sampling made at different stages of chemotherapy and selenium supplementation. At each of these stages, the cholesterol, glucose and triglycerides parameters were read using the Z-scan and spectrophotometry techniques. We observed that selenium helps in balancing the health of these patients, and corroborates with our hypothesis that the Z-scan technique may be an alternative for the determination of biochemical parameters.
