Metals and breast cancer: Risk factors or healing agents?

Metals and metal compounds are part of our environment. several metals are essential for physiological functions (e.g.,zinc or magnesium); while the beneficial effects of others are uncertain (e.g.,manganese),some metals are proven to be toxic (e.g.,mercury,lead). additionally there are organic metal compounds; some of them are extremely toxic (e.g.,trimethyltin,methylmercury),but there is very little knowledge available how they are handled by organisms. scientific evidence indicates that long-term exposure to (some) metallic compounds induces different forms of cancer,including breast cancer. on the other side,several metal compounds have clinical use in treating life-threatening diseases such as cancer. in this paper we discuss the recent literature that shows a correlation between metal exposure and breast cancer. copyright © 2011 ana-maria florea and dietrich bsselberg.