Taking the popular mineral supplement selenium doesn't reduce the likelihood of lung cancer recurrence, a new study has shown.

It has been reported that lead author Daniel D. Karp, a professor in the department of thoracic/head and neck medical oncology at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, presented the finding at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, in Chicago.

Karp said, "Several epidemiological and animal studies have long-suggested a link between deficiency of selenium and cancer development. Interest and research escalated in the late 1990s after a skin cancer and selenium study, published in 1996, found no benefit against the skin cancer, but did suggest an approximate 30 percent reduction of prostate and lung cancers. Our lung cancer research and another major study for the prevention of prostate cancer evolved from that finding."

However, among more than 1,500 stage 1 (early) non-small cell lung cancer patients who had survived their initial bout with the disease, selenium offered no protection against recurrence or the onset of a new cancer or second primary cancer, the new study has found.

The patients were tracked from 2000 to 2009, after all had undergone surgery to remove their initial tumors and remained cancer-free for a minimum of six months post-treatment.

While the other half took a placebo, half the patients were placed on a regimen of 200 micrograms of selenium.

It was also reported that those in the placebo group had better survival rates five years later than those taking the supplement, an observation that led the research team to halt the study earlier than planned.

The researchers further said that while 78 percent taking the placebo stayed alive over that time frame, the rate was just 72 percent among the selenium group. And while 1.4 percent of the placebo group developed a second primary tumor within a year, that figure rose to 1.9 percent among the selenium group. (With Inputs from Agencies)