from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Submicron particles occurring in the environment are of natural origin, but are also formed by anthropogenic activities as secondary products. The source of these submicron particles are e.g. energy industries, ore processing, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries, smoking, transportation, etc. Chemical composition of these particles from single sources is not precisely known. Due to their size (˂1 µm) they can be easily inhaled and thus enter deep respiratory tract into the lungs. Depending on their size and chemical composition they may have the ability to induce oxidative stress in cells, which lead to damage to the body eventually. The paper addresses occurrence of unspecified peripheral T-cell lymphoma in a 74-year-old male patient, non-smoker, previously working in metal rollers worker. This case was evaluated from the pathological point of view, together with a detection of submicron particles/clusters in the sample of the tumor tissue. Histologically the tumor was in lung tissue inaccurately bounded with diffusely growing medium sized to large lymphoid elements having nuclei of irregular size and shape and with one or multiple nucleoli with prominent mitotic activity. Dark pigment was also dispersed in the tissue during examination by light microscopy at high magnification under polarized light and also foreign particles probably of metallic character were observed. Experimental method used included scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM - EDX) and Raman microspectroscopy. SEM - EDX revealed presence of particles/clusters in sizes ˂500 nm based mainly on iron. Occurrence of iron particles namely siderite (FeCO3) was confirmed by Raman microspectroscopy. Moreover the tumor tissue was identified to contain carbon black and graphite-based particles.
Keywords: submicron metal and carbon-based particles/clusters, T-cell lymphoma, scanning electron microscopy, Raman microspectroscopy© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.