Medical Research,
Pharmacology and Clinical Research
Isotopes are essential to a wide variety of applications in medicine. Radioactive isotopes are used for diagnosis and treatment of various diseases such as cancer, whereas enriched stable isotopes are commonly used as metabolic tracers. Also the use of the non-traditional stable isotopes such as Ca, Fe, Cu and Zn has gained more and more interest to study human health and diseases. For example, copper and zinc isotopes can help to track cancer progression, calcium isotopes can be used to monitor bone loss and iron isotopes have the potential to react to genetic disorders and may serve as biomarker of iron metabolism.
Elemental analysis of body fluids plays a major role in the diagnosis of a range of disorders. Apart from the essential and well-recognized toxic metals, also elements that cause acute toxicity (Ag, Bi, Sb, etc), elements used in implants (Ag, Cr, Ni, Pt, Si, Ti, Zr) precious metals (dental alloys) and rare earth elements and actinides are becoming more important.
The Thermo Scientific™ product portfolio enables isotope and trace elemental analysis in clinical and medical samples using the Delta V™ and 253 Plus™ Gas IRMS products and the ICP-based products, the Neptune Plus™ MC-ICPMS and Element 2™ and Element XR™ High-Resolution ICPMS.
Key Applicatons
- δ13C in Fatty Acid Methyl Esters
- Cu and Zn Isotope Ratio Analysis to track cancer progression
- Ca Isotopes as Proxy for Ca balance in Human Body
- Sulphur Isotope Measurements in Human Serum
- Trace Elemental Analysis of Implants and Dental Alloys
