Major, minor, and trace elements in whole blood of patients with different leukemia patterns

The elemental sensitivity method for X-ray fluorescence analysis was applied to determine S, Cl, K, Ca, Fe, Cu, Zn, Br, and Rb in the whole blood of leukemia patients and healthy volunteers. Leukemia samples were classified according to type, growth, and age of participants. Student’s t-test results showed that, the mean concentration of the studied elements was significantly lower in leukemia patients than that in controls. Strong mutual correlations (r greather than 0.50) in the whole blood of leukemia patients were observed between S-Ca, K-Fe, K-Ca, Fe-Zn, K-Zn, K-Rb, Fe-Rb, Zn-Rb, S-Cl, S-K, Ca-Fe, Cl-Ca, and Ca-Rb; whereas, S-K, S-Ca, S-Cl, Cl-K, Cl-Ca, Fe-Zn, Zn-Rb, Fe-Rb, K-Fe, and Zn-Br exhibited strong relationships (r greather than 0.50) in the whole blood of controls, all were significant at p less than 0.05. Significant differences between grouping of studied elements in the control group and all classified leukemia groups, except younger age-group, were obtained using principal component analysis. The study indicated appreciably different patterns of element distribution and mutual relationships in the whole blood of leukemia patients in comparison with controls.