Trace elements in cutaneous tissue by PIXE and INAA

The goal of this research was to examine the contents of some micro- and macro-elements found in the tumor tissues of patients having skin cancer disease, namely basal cell carcinoma (BCC), squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), malignant melanoma (MM) and nevus. The analytical methods of proton induced X-ray emission (PIXE) and instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) were used. Skin samples from 22 cancer patients, aged 32-88 years, 11 males and 11 females, were collected. The control samples were health skin samples (histopathological diagnosis) from patients having skin cancer. The concentration values generally show a large spread for the same type of samples, giving rise to large standard deviations of the mean values. By comparing with the control samples, the tumor data put in evidence the following: - an increase of P, S and K concentrations (ratios between 2.3±0.9 and 8.8±6.5); - an increase of Ca concentrations in the BCC and nevus samples (3.3 and 6.1, respectively) and in a smaller degree in the other cases; - rather high concentrations of Fe and Zn, especially for MM and nevus groups; - levels of Cl, Ti, Cr, Mn and Cu not significantly different in the tumors compared to the control samples. (authors)