Diagnosis of Thyroid Malignancy using Levels of Chemical Element Contents in Nodular Tissue

Abstract

Introduction: Thyroid benign (TBN) and malignant (TMN) nodules are a common thyroid lesion. The differentiation of TMN often remains a clinical challenge and further improvements of TMN diagnostic accuracy are warranted. The aim of present study was to evaluate possibilities of using differences in chemical elements (ChEs) contents in nodular tissue for diagnosis of thyroid malignancy. Methods: Contents of ChEs such as aluminum (Al), boron (B), barium (Ba), calcium (Ca), chlorine (Cl), coper (Cu), iron (Fe), iodine (I), potassium (K), lithium (Li), magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn), sodium (Na), phosphorus (P), sulfur (S), silicon (Si), strontium (Sr), vanadium (V), and zinc (Zn) were prospectively evaluated in “normal” thyroid (NT) of 105 individuals as well as in nodular tissue of thyroids with TBN (79 patients) and to TMN (41 patients). Measurements were performed using a combination of non-destructive and destructive methods: instrumental neutron activation analysis with high resolution spectrometry of short-lived radionuclides and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry. Results: It was observed that in TMN tissue the mean mass fraction of I was lower while the mean mass fractions of K, Mg, and P were higher than in both NT and TBN groups of samples. It was demonstrated that I content is nodular tissue is the most informative parameter for the diagnosis of thyroid malignancy. It was found that “Sensitivity”, “Specificity” and “Accuracy” of TMN identification using the I level in the needle biopsy of affected thyroid tissue was significantly higher than that using US examination and cytological test of fine needle aspiration biopsy. Conclusions: It was concluded that determination of the I level in a needle biopsy of TNs using non-destructive instrumental analytical method is a fast, reliable, and very informative diagnostic tool that can be successfully used as an additional test of thyroid malignancy identification.

Contents of twelve chemical elements in normal human breast determined using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry

“…However, it should be noted that the variations of published mean values for some of the studied ChE are very large and amounts to several mathematical orders. The obtained data of the studied ChE content in healthy breast tissue were compared with the reference values of the content of these ChE in blood serum [5,54] , adipose tissue [2,55] , prostate [56] and thyroid [34,[57][58][59][60] human gland (Table 4). Wherein, published data on the water content in breast tissue [61] and the results of report No.…”

“…The third objective was to compare the average mass fractions of Al, Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Na, P, S, Si, Sr and Zn in normal breast tissue obtained in the study with data published in literature. The ultimate goal was to find differences between the results obtained for normal breast tissue and the reference data for the mass fractions of Al, Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Na, P, S, Si, Sr and Zn in blood serum, adipose tissue, and also tissues of the prostate and thyroid [2,5,34,[54][55][56][57] .…”