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MASSIVE PULMONARY DEPOSITION OF RUTILE AFTER TITANIUM DIOXIDE EXPOSURE
Author(s) -
RODE L. E.,
OPHUS E. M.,
GYLSETH B.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
acta pathologica microbiologica scandinavica section a pathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1600-0463
pISSN - 0365-4184
DOI - 10.1111/j.1699-0463.1981.tb00245.x
Subject(s) - rutile , titanium dioxide , pigment , deposition (geology) , electron microscope , inert , white light , materials science , optical microscope , chemistry , scanning electron microscope , mineralogy , metallurgy , optics , geology , composite material , organic chemistry , paleontology , physics , optoelectronics , sediment
Autopsy findings in a 55‐year‐old man known to have been occupationally heavily exposed to titanium dioxide dust showed extensive pulmonary deposition of white pigment. By energy dispersive X‐ray analysis (EDAX) and electron and X‐ray diffraction, the pigment was identified as rutile. By ordinary transmitted light microscopy, deposits of the white crystalline titanium‐dioxide could not be distinguished from anthracotic pigment present in the lung sections. By transmitted polarized and incident light microscopy, the different nature of the two types of pigment was immediately evident. Absence of inflammatory and fibrotic changes in the lungs in our case lends support to the view that rutile is biochemically inert.