Abstract
Objective: The goal of this contribution is to present and familiarize the medical
community with the method for the assessment of trace and essentials elements in prostate tissue
sections.
Materials and methods: X-ray fl uorescence based technique (namely Synchrotron Induced X-ray
Emission (SRIXE)) is described in terms of methodology, sample preparation and the evaluation of the
recorded results (spectral data sets).
Materials for the samples were collected from the patients underwent radical prostatectomy due to Adenocarcinoma
prostatae. Specimens were freeze-dried, cut by microtome (to the thickness of 15 μm),
one slice was placed on Mylar foil (for SRIXE measurements) and adjacent one on microscopic glass (for
histopathological assessment).
Results: Results presented here show the usability of SRIXE method for the evaluation of concentration
of trace and essential elements in prostate tissue sections with the spatial resolution better than
15 microns.
Discussion: Histopathological analysis of samples, which is only focused on morphological features,
is unable to reveal information about changes in biochemical signature of tissues aff ected by the illness.
SRIXE is a powerful and promising technique to analyse even very low concentrations of selected elements at the cellular level without any labelling or separating procedures. Obtained results may be correlated
with classic histopathological assessment allowing for drawing conclusions on the changes in certain
elements concentrations with the progression of disease. Moreover, mentioned in this work analysis, can
be performed for any type of biological tissues.
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