著者

土田 雅通

出版者

九州歯科学会

雑誌

九州歯科学会雑誌 (ISSN:03686833)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.25, no.3, pp.215-249, 1971 (Released:2017-12-23)

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The recent advances in the atomic absorption spectrophotometry has facilitated the studies on the copper and zinc levels in blood of the cancer-bearing organism. But there are few reports in which these metals in the whole blood and plasma as well as formed components of blood, i.e. erythrocytes and leucocytes were determined with use of a single blood sample. The present author applied the apparatus of the atomic absorption spectophotometry (HITACHI-207) for the determination of the copper and zinc contents in the whole blood and in the components of blood. A total of 76 cases were examined, consisting of 31 patients with malignant tumors including 10 cases of oral cancer, 20 patients with benign diseases and 25 normal persons. The copper and zinc levels in blood showed a remarkable difference only in the plasma between the normal group and the group with malignancy. In the normal group, the copper of the plasma was 1.21±0.21μg/ml. On the other hand, in the group with malignancy, the plasma copper levels were significantly higher than in the normal group, being 1.02±0.21μg/ml. In the normal group the copper content in the erythrocytes was 0.94±0.10μg/ml, and that in the whole blood was 1.05±0.13μg/ml, whereas the zinc content in the erythrocytes was 13.9±2.6μg/ml, and that in whole blood was 7.56±2.36μg/ml. The mean of copper content in the leucocytes was 16.2μg/10^<10> cells. The zinc content in the leucocytes was 152±44μg/10^<10> cells in the normal group, 160±76μg/10^<10> cells in the group with malignant tumors, and 144±61μg/10^<10> cells in benign diseases. There was no significant difference among these groups. In the group with malignant tumors, however, the cases with oral cancer showed a significantly higher level of 213±80μg/10^<10> cells than the normal group (p<0.002), and the cases with the cancer of the stomach and other organs tended to show lower levels than the normal group. Furthermore, an inverse correlation existed only in the groups with malignancy between the number of the leucocytes and the zinc content in the leucocytes (γ=-0.4720). This correlation was also noticed in the group with the cancer of stomach and other organs (γ=-0.5298), and a similar tendency was found in cases of oral cancer although no correlation of statistical significance could be proved. The fact that these latter patients had been subjected to the chemotherapy and radiological treatments before the blood examination, might be one of the causes of the phenomenon. No correlation existed between the score of dithizone staining of the leucocytes that was obtained with the method of Fujimoto in our department and the zinc content in the leucocytes that was determined with the present method.