Description

There is a major health problem due to the environmental and occupational related exposures to mineral particles, metals, and dust. The impact on health is considerable in terms of prevalence, morbidity and healthcare costs. Pathologists rarely report the presence of a possible mineral or metal-related etiology in a specimen by lack of available and convenient technology. Therefore, several respiratory diseases are considered idiopathic.

Interstitial lung disease (ILD), also known as diffuse parenchymal lung disease (DPLD) is a group of lung diseases affecting the interstitium (the tissue and space around the air sacs of the lungs). In France, 15.000 new cases of ILD are diagnosed each year. ILD may be classified according to the cause. Idiopathic ILD are ILD of unknown causes. The most frequent idiopathic ILD are sarcoidosis and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).These two diseases are the core topic of the present study since they may relate to important mineral or metal exposure.

The overall goal of this MEDICO-LIBS study is to evaluate the feasibility of using a laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS)-based instrument to image(ie, identify, localize and possibly quantify) metals within selected human specimens with ILDs.