NUCLEAR MICROSCOPY IN BIOMEDICAL ANALYSIS WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON CLINICAL METAL BIOLOGY

Nuclear microscopy based upon developments in high energy ion beam tec hniques is by now an accepted technique in many fields of research. Th e advancements into the biomedical field have, however, been slower th an expected. A major factor explaining this tendency is the availabili ty of nuclear microscopy. This paper reviews briefly the biomedical wo rk using nuclear microscopy that has been carried out since the 4(th) International Conference on Nuclear Microprobe Technology and Applicat ions held in Shanghai. Nuclear microscopy of isolated individual blood cells from patients adversely affected by metal exposure from dental amalgam has been performed both before and after removal of the metall ic fillings. The elemental profile of blood cells was more or less nor malised after treatment. Some of these results will be presented to il lustrate a medical application. Results from bulk analysis by ICP-MS o f erythrocytes and plasma before and after treatment will also be pres ented to illustrate the difference in information content between thes e two approaches as well as the need for complementary information in solving biomedical problems. As part of a larger study of acute porphy ria, nuclear microscopy of blood cells was included among the 78 labor atory tests. The approach in this study was unbiased in the sense that no hypothesis was formulated as to which laboratory parameters would be the most explanatory for health or disease. Multivariate discrimina nt analysis was applied to the large amounts of data acquired. This ap proach led to the hypothesis that oxidative stress increased the synth esis of manganese-dependent superoxide dismutase in the mitochondria o f polymorphonuclear leukocytes, explaining the increase of manganese i n these cells. Antioxidant therapy was therefore applied to a couple o f patients with porphyria, however, without clinical success. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.