Application of micro-pixe and dynamic analysis for the characterization of human hard tissues

Abstract EN

In recent years applications of Particle Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) in the bio-medical field have opened important areas of research with a significant sensitivity to compete with techniques such as X-ray Fluorescence (XRF), Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (EDXRF), Electron Microprobe (EMP) and/or Scanning Electron Microprobe (SEM).

The micro- PIXE technique is used to investigate the morphology as well as the elemental composition of human tissues on a microscopic scale.

In addition, complementary ion beam techniques are used to provide information on the major and minor components.

This paper deals with an overview of the bio-medical projects particularly in relation to spatial distribution of trace metals in hard human tissues such as renal stone concretions, teeth and hair, undertaken at the Nuclear Microprobe (NMP) facility.

Relevant information about ion beam techniques used for material characterization is discussed.

Dynamic Analysis (DA) is used to extract information on spatial distribution of trace elements (TE) within selected micro-regions.

This will be illustrated with several examples using proton energies of 1.5 and 3.0 MeV and applied to: 1) Teeth erosion mechanisms; 2) Human renal stone concretions nucleation region analysis; 3) Mapping of human hair cross sections from two different population groups.

KEYWORDS: Proton microprobe, PIXE, Hard tissues