Comment on: The effects of Vitamin E and Selenium on cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity in cancer patients treated with cisplatin-based chemotherapy: A randomized, placebo-controlled study

| October 2013 | 922 much attention has been made toward kidney protective efficiency of selenium. The results of the study conducted by Randjelovic et al., showed selenium supplementation attenuates oxidative-stress-associated renal injury by reducing oxygen free radicals and lipid peroxidation in gentamicin-treated rats,[4] while gentamicin-renal damage in Wistar rats is a model of acute kidney injury indicated that gentamicin-induced tissue injury was mediated through oxidative reactions.[5-11] Selenium is a trace element that participates as a cofactor in several enzymes, one of them is participant in the regulation of enzymatic antioxidant defenses.[12] It was found that selenium supplementation in renal patients reduce the products of oxidative stress.[12-14] In a study by Taskin et al., on adriamycin-induced renal damage in rats showed selenium is effective in vivo against adriamycin-induced kidney injury via the restoration of total antioxidant and oxidant status, which prevented mitochondrial damage.[15] Recent findings have shown that plasma selenium level have been found to be reduced in patients with acute kidney injury.[16-18] indeed, low serum selenium levels are a frequent finding in patients with chronic renal failure too.[19-21] However, to date, few investigations have studied the association of hyposelenemia and morbidity and mortality in renal failure patients. Thus, these available data lend further evidence for the attribution of selenium in its kidney protective property. In this regard, to understand the selenium kidney protective properties better, more experimental rat models or clinical studies are suggested.