Cadmium as main endocrine disruptor in papillary thyroid carcinoma and the significance of Cd/Se ratio for thyroid tissue pathophysiology

Abstract

The etiology of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is unknown and some literature data support the hypothesis that heavy metals, as endocrine disrupters, could play a major role in the pathogenesis of thyroid cancer. This study aimed to estimate the content of selected toxic and essential trace metals (Mn, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Cd, Pb, Th, and U), as well as the selected ratio's (Cu/Zn and Cd/Se) in the malignant thyroid tissues according to sex, age, smoking habits, familial history of any thyroid disease, pathohistological (PH) types of PTC, tumor size, the existence of a thyroid capsular invasion, intrathyroid tumor dissemination, retrosternal thyroid growth, and TNM progress of PTC.