Pathological mineralizations: Calcifications and Si-bearing particles in soft tissues and their eventual relationship to different prostheses

Polarizing microscopy (PM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), x-ray dispe rsive analysis (EDAX), x-ray diffraction (XRD), and infrared spectrometry ( IR) were used to study the following pathological mineralizations: calcific ations and silicon(Si)-bearing mineralizations in cerebral tissue from an e pileptic child; traces of Si-bearing particles in periprosthesic mammarian tissue, and calcifications in capsular mammarian tissue from a patient with a silicone gel mammarian implant, and 2 calcium-bearing compounds, a typic al apatitic calcification, and a nonphosphorous-bearing calcification in ar terial tissues. In this tissue we also found Si-bearing particles due to an artifact from glassware.