Ald. Beckers et al., NEW DEVELOPMENTS AND APPLICATIONS IN QUANTITATIVE ELECTRON SPECTROSCOPIC IMAGING OF IRON IN HUMAN LIVER BIOPSIES, Micron, 28(5), 1997, pp. 349-359
Reliable iron concentration data can be obtained by quantitative analy
ses of image sequences, acquired by electron spectroscopic imaging. A
number of requirements are formulated for the successful application o
f this recently developed irt situ quantitative type of analysis. A de
monstration of the procedures is given. By application of the techniqu
e it is established that there are no significant differences in the a
verage iron loading of structures analysed in liver parenchymal cells
of a patient with an iron storage disease, before and after phlebotomy
. This supports the hypothesis that the process of iron unloading is a
n organelle specific process. Measurement of the binary morphology, re
presented by the area and contour ratio of the iron containing objects
revealed no information about differences between the objects. This f
inding contradicts the visual suggestion that ferritin clusters are mo
re irregularly shaped than the other iron objects. Also, no difference
s could be found in this sense between the situations before and after
phlebotomy. With respect to the density appearance, objects that have
an inhomogeneous iron loading averagely contain more iron. This obser
vation does correspond well with the visual impression of the increasi
ngly irregular appearance of more well-loaded structures. (C) 1997 Els
evier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.