ABSTRACT
Tumorous and adjacent non-tumorous paired biopsies from 38 patients with colorectal cancer were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry after low-volume microwave digestion. 18 elements were investigated: Ag, Al, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Mo, Ni, P, Pb, S, Se and Zn. Different chemometric tools were used for data evaluation: Wilcoxon signed rank test, Hieratical clustering analysis, principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA). With the exception of Al, tumours were observed to have significantly more elevated concentrations of essential elements as compared to non-tumours. On the contrary, elements considered potentially carcinogenic such as Cr, Ni, Mo or Co do not display significant differences. When PCA was applied, different components were obtained for tumorous and non-tumorous tissues. When LDA was applied for the elements studied (including essential and non-essential elements) about 90% of cases were correctly classified.
Subject(s)
Adenocarcinoma/chemistry , Colorectal Neoplasms/chemistry , Metals/analysis , Trace Elements/analysis , Aged , Biopsy , Cluster Analysis , Discriminant Analysis , Female , Humans , Male , Mass Spectrometry , Microwaves , Principal Component Analysis , Spectrophotometry, Atomic , Statistics, Nonparametric , Tumor MicroenvironmentABSTRACT
We are reporting a case of neurobrucellosis that was clinically and radiologically indistinguishable from a cerebral tumor. The histological diagnosis was granulomatous encephalitis. The diagnosis was established by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), detecting high levels of Ig G and Ig M Brucella antibodies in the serum and the cerebrospinal fluid. We suggest that patients with granulomatous encephalitis, without a clear etiological agent, should be studied for Brucella.
