DEVELOPMENT OF AN APPROACH FOR QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF TRACE ELEMENTS PRESENT IN CANINE BREAST TUMORS BY ENERGY DISPERSIVE X-RAY FLUORESCENCE

摘要

Studies performed with canines indicate that one of the main neoplasias which affect these animals are the breast tumors, representing from 25% to 50% of all kinds of tumors. Moreover, half of them are classified as malignant. In this sense, recent researches on humans have been associated the presence of certain trace elements with the development of breast neoplasias in those individuals. Then, as the breast tissue composition in canines is very similar to the humans, it is expected the same behavior. In this direction, a very effective technique to identify and to determinate trace elements concentration is the EDXRF. However, studies on this area are scarce in the literature. Therefore, in this work it was developed an approach to quantify the main trace elements present into these tumors with high sensitivity. For this purpose, it was determined calibration curves of standards samples diluted in water, with concentrations of Ca, Fe, Cu and Zn, ranging from 400mg/kg to 35mg/kg, from 20mg/kg to 2mg/kg, from 10mg/kg to 1mg/kg and from 100mg/kg to 10mg/kg, respectively. All calibration curves were linearly fitted and on basis in this behavior it was determined the sensitivity of our approach to quantify the concentration of the trace elements mentioned above. In addition, it is important to mention that studies in this area are of great potential, because EDXRF represents a quickly practical and non-destructive alternative to quantify trace elements.