Ricerc@Sapienza

Recently the knowledge of chemical composition of pathological mineralizations is an important topicextensively studied because it could give more in-depth information to understand pathologies them-selves and to improve prevention methods. In this work, psammoma bodies (PBs) microcalcificationsin thyroid cancer tissue are investigated by different and complementary analytical methods as: micro-Fourier transformed spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, Inductively Coupled plasma OpticalEmission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive X-rayspectroscopy imaging (EDX). For the first time the micro-FTIR analysis of the only inorganic phase iso-lated from PBs was reported. Signals of the recorded spectrum showed that the main component of thecalcifications is the amorphous carbonated calcium phosphate, and the IR spectrum of thyroid PBs isstrongly consistent with that of PBs in human ovarian tumors. The XRF and the ICP analysis detected alsothe presence of iron ad zinc in thyroid PBs. These results are validated by scanning electron microscopy(SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy imaging (EDX) carried out on tissue samples of thepapillary thyroid carcinoma. By these analytical methods magnesium and sodium were detected withinPBs while the presence of iron was confirmed by the Perls test. Summarizing the results of applied ana-lytical methods, the main detected elements within the thyroid psammoma bodies are Ca, P, Mg, Na, Feand Zn. Magnesium and sodium are found in malignant breast cancer microcalcifications, thus they seemcorrelated to neoplastic transformation. The Fe and Zn elements could give information about the originof these pathological microcalcifications.