Particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) analysis of biological materials: Precision, accuracy and application to cancer tissues

An autopsy kidney, a human serum sample and NBS bovine liver were analyzed by both PIXE and instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). Several target preparation procedures were investigated. The reproducibility of the PIXE analysis, as determined by analyzing up to 20 targets from the same material, was of the order of 10% or better. For most elements a good agreement was obtained between PIXE and INAA, indicating that PIXE can yield data which are accurate to within 10%. The PIXE technique was also applied to cancerous and normal tissue sections of the same organ of patients, showing renal cell and other types of carcinoma. Substantial differences were often observed between the trace element concentration patterns of the cancerous and normal sections. (orig.)