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History and Project
In the mid-Nineties, in two different circumstances, we had the chance to analyze two vena-cava filters which broke in the patient’s organism). On their surface we found traces of metals that didn't belong either to the league the filter was made of nor to the organism. Then, we couldn’t give any explanation to such a finding. Late in 1998, a patient was referred to the general hospital in Modena. Among the diseases he suffered from for more than eight years there was an intermittent fever which couldn’t be cured by any treatment. The diagnosis issued by the medical staff was that of a liver and renal granulomatosis whose origin couldn’t be detected. Due to a number of fortuitous coincidences, the patient’s bioptic samples was delivered to the Laboratory of Biomaterials, where they were observed according to a method that we were experimenting. The instrumentation used consisted of a scanning electron microscope then and that he benefited of an electronic microscope to environmental scanning equipped with an x-ray microprobe through which, though not without limitations, we could analyze the elemental chemistry of the sample. To the surprise of the physicians, it was immediately evident that that tissue contained inorganic particles whose composition was typical of a ceramic material whose chemical elements don’t belong to the organism either individually or in a bound form. Besides, none of those particle is biodegradable. We ascertained, then, that the patient carried a dental prosthesis whose chemical composition corresponded to the one we had found in the particles and that the prosthesis was worn out in an abnormal way because of a malocclusion. It must be added that that prosthesis had been implanted just a few months before the symptoms appeared. So, it was only reasonable to suppose that the patient had swallowed part of his prosthesis and ingested for years inorganic particles that had reached his liver and his kidneys. How, we couldn’t say. In addition to that, we couldn’t say if the granulomatosis had been triggered by those particles or they had are been captured by an already pathological tissue. If the problems were produced by the continuous ingestion of ceramic material, no therapy was available, and the only possibility was that to eliminate the source. And that was what we did: we removed the prosthesis and the patient improved visibly. The fever disappeared and his liver and kidneys went back to their original functions.
In the meantime, pushed by the curiosity for such an unusual finding, we had started to check the biopsies of patients affected by inflammatory illnesses of unknown origin. The first step was to look for other cases of cryptogenic (i.e. of unknown origin) granulomatoses filed in the archives of the university of Modena, in those of the Free Royal Hospital of London and of the university of Mainz (Germany) with which we had established a collaboration. The result was that in all the cases that there we were given to observe inorganic particles were present, and those particles could not be of biological origin, since the elements that composed them don't belong to any living organism. Thus, it was only obvious to think that those particles come from a source outside our body and enter our organism through the most natural doors: the digestive and the respiratory systems.
There is an increasing concern about the possibility that micro- and nano-sized materials of environmental origin can interfere with our body and damage our health. That atmospheric pollution is one of the main pathogens to the respiratory system has been recognized long ago. Now the problem is to assess if the same or a similar kind of materials, when ingested, can be equally noxious. The European project QLRT-2002-147 aims at studying the presence and the meaning of micro - and nano-particles in various pathologies of unknown origin.
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