Lymphnode metastasis of thyroid cancer misinterpreted as lateral aberrant thyroid 40 years before identification of primary tumor. Case report and review of the literature.

The differential diagnosis between lateral ectopic thyroid tissue with orthotopic normal gland and metastatic thyroid carcinoma is challenging. Lateral cervical site is a very rare location for ectopic tissue since only a few cases have been reported. The peculiarity of this clinical case is the finding of a thyroid carcinoma forty years after surgical resection of the ectopic thyroid lesion. This asynchronous association, never reported in literature, raises the question of the differential diagnosis between a true ectopic aberrant thyroid and an early lymph node metastasis from an occult thyroid carcinoma, evident in the primitive site many years later. Several elements, which will be matter of discussion, seem to favour the latter hypothesis.This case, although isolated, suggests that any lateral cervical mass, comprising thyroid tissue, should be regarded as a metastasis of thyroid carcinoma until proven otherwise. Carefull investigation of thyroid gland is mandatory.

PARAFAC analysis of IBIL spectra from silver ion exchanged glasses.

In this work we present for the first time an application of PARAllel FACtor (PARAFAC) analysis to the investigation of Ion Beam Induced Luminescence (IBIL) spectra of Ag+↔Na+ ion exchanged silicate glasses, in order to check the possibility to obtain additional information on the formation of silver aggregates under ion irradiation by a proper statistical rearrangement of experimental spectra. We decomposed the data by PARAFAC taking into account both IBIL emission features and their evolution as a function of the time. Shape and trend under irradiation of the extracted components were correlated to silver concentration and aggregates in the investigated systems. Strength and weakness of this statistical approach applied to IBIL spectra recorded as a function of time were evidenced and discussed.

Ion Beam Induced Luminescence capabilities for the analysis of coarse-grained river sediments.

In this work the Ion Beam Induced Luminescence (IBIL) capabilities for the analysis of geological mobile sediment samples from the beds of three major rivers flowing in the Veneto Region (North-Eastern Italy) is presented in the first application of this technique to characterize such samples. Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Fourier Transform Spectroscopy (DRIFTS) spectra were also measured and discussed to give indications for the identification of the main luminescence features. The evolution of the different IBIL components with the irradiation dose was studied and their correlation to matrix defects outlined. Finally, a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the IBIL evolving spectra was performed to verify the capability of this approach to discriminate among the different samples.

Multivariate analysis as a tool for Ion Beam Induced Luminescence (IBIL) spectra interpretation.

Multivariate analysis is used to identify the number and wavelength position of components evolving during irradiation with different rates in Ion Beam Induced Luminescence (IBIL) spectra. The method, based on the study of the eigenvectors of the matrix whose elements are the luminescence intensity values for different wavelengths and fluences, is tested on two different simulated cases and on experimental IBIL spectra collected from a polysiloxane scintillators.