TG-FTIR COUPLED ANALYSIS APPLIED TO THE STUDIES IN UROLITHIASIS - CHARACTERIZATION OF HUMAN RENAL CALCULI

Many different analytical techniques, as solid state spectroscopy, the rmoanalysis, NMR, etc. have been proposed to solve the problems in the field of urolithiasis. The problems related to these techniques may b e overcomed by thermoanalytical methods coupled with the FTIR spectros copy, that allows to identify and to quantify all the different compon ents of the renal stones. Thermogravimetry coupled with FTIR is a wide ly technique to characterize renal calculi because of its great sensit ivity, reproducibility and accuracy. Moreover, the absence of sample p re-treatments and the short time for the analysis (20-40 min). are ver y useful for routine purposes. By this method more than 2000 calculi w ere analyzed.