Selenium in therapy of colorectal cancer?

Background: Is the complementary supplementation of selenium useful in the therapy of colorectal cancer? Patients and Methods: Fifty-three patients with primary colorectal cancer r eceived a selenium treatment for 19 days in addition to a complete in-patie nt rehabilitation cure based on a behavioural approach. A comparative contr ol group consisted of 41 patients. Measured factors were the selenium conte nt in serum and whole blood, GSH-Px activity and TBARS in serum. Both the i ntake of selenium by nutrition and the patients' life quality were determin ed additionally on day 1 and 19. The tumor marker CA 19-9 was measured only on day 1. Results: A latent selenium deficiency was observed while gsh-px activity or concentration of TBARS were normal. The selenium status corresponds to the concentration of the tumor marker CA 19-9. The selenium status improves th rough supplementation, accompanied by a further increase of GSH-Px activity . During supplementation the patients' life quality improves; subjective ph ysical complaints decrease. Conclusion: Further research will be necessary on both the dependency of th e selenium status on the tumor marker concentration and on the development of the Optimum GSH-Px activity and individually different responses also ne ed additional investigation. The influence of selenium on the patients' lif e qualitiy should be investigated in the context of immunomodulation.