Tasneem Gul Kazi, Sham Kumar Wadhwa, Hassan Imran Afridi, Farah N Talpur and Afaq Ahmed Siddiqui

Immense epidemiologic studies have been reported about the role of essential trace and toxic elements as risk factors for incidence of different type of cancers in population of developed and developing countries. In present work the levels of carcinogenic, Arsenic, Cadmium, and Nickel (As, Cd and Ni) and anti-carcinogenic, Zinc and Selenium (Zn and Se) elements were measured in blood of male cancer patients (urinary bladder, lung, mouth and esophageal) and healthy referents. The all patients and referents were smoker. The blood samples were analysed with atomic absorption spectrometry after microwave assisted acid digestion. The resulted data indicated that the levels of toxic elements As, Ni and Cd were considerably elevated whereas essential elements, Zn and Se were lower in blood samples of all cancer cases as compared to those values found in noncancerous subjects. As the levels of essential trace elements were low in blood samples of male cancerous patients but difference was highly significant in lung and mouth cancer subjects (p<0.001), whereas sequence of decreasing order was not uniform. The levels of Zn in blood samples of different cancerous patients were found in decreasing order as: esophagus< mouth< urinary bladder<lung, whereas in case of Se as mouth<lung<urinary bladder<esophagus.