Comparison of Quantitative Element Distribution in Kidney and Muscle Tissue of Patients with Calcium Oxalate Calculi

Abstract

The publicity, the issue of worldwide pollution has gained in recent years, has, for one thing, drawn public attention to the fact that in living organism even very small, environmentally induced changes in an element concentration can lead to disease. Also previous research has, among other things, prompted investigations of abnormalities of the element pattern of organs, directly affected by diseases of so far unknown cause. As a prerequisite for such investigations one should know the “normal” element concentrations, which still today is mostly not the case. There are some basic requirements, which analytical methods, suitable for such investigation, must meet:

• 1. It is desirable that as many elements as possible should be determined simultaneously because it is not known at first which concentration will be out of range.

• 2. Samples will have to be small, because preferably tissue of living patients should be studied. In case of death deviations from the living pattern cannot be ruled out.

• 3. As complex biological systems are involved, due to which element concentrations in healthy people show natural fluctuations, only investigations of a large number of samples will lead to conclusive results. This in turn requires a widely automated analytical method.