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Abstract
Titanium and vanadium are essential trace elements. This study examined the associations of urinary titanium and vanadium with breast cancer risk in a hospital-based case-control study comprising 240 women with incident breast cancer, and 246 cancer-free and age-matched controls who attended health screening assessments in 2 affiliated hospitals of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou between October 2009 and July 2010. Survey data and urine specimens were collected before treatment for the patients and after interview for the controls. The urinary concentrations of titanium and vanadium were measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Women in the second and the highest tertile of vanadium showed 64% and 40% decreased risk of breast cancer, respectively, when compared with those in the lowest tertile after adjustment for established risk factors of breast cancer (ORs [95%CI]: 0.36 [0.21–0.60] and 0.60 [0.37–0.97], respectively). In contrast, urinary titanium was not significantly related to a decreased risk of breast cancer. These results have potentially significant implications on nutritional chemoprevention of breast cancer and the development of new anticancer drugs. Further replications of the study are recommended, and the biological mechanisms warrant clarification.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank the nursing, secretary, and administrative staff in the Breast Department of the First Affiliated Hospital and the Second Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, and the laboratory personnel in the Laboratory of Guangdong Testing Center of Occupational Hygiene, particularly Mrs. Aihua Zhang for her cooperation in assessment of the urinary concentrations of titanium and vanadium.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81072383, 81172759) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (10ykjc24).
Lu-ying Tang and Yi Su contributed equally to this work.